First Frost
by Lady Devonna
Summary: AU: When Jotunheim strikes covertly at the heart of Asgard while the princes are still young, Loki and Thor are torn from home and thrown into danger they're ill prepared for, and secrets let out sooner yield different hurts.
1. Chapter 1

Frigga's langeleik was a bit too large for Loki's hands, but he was used to compensating for that. While it wouldn't have been beyond his reach to have an instrument made to suit him, princes didn't get their own pocket money or the option to arrange transactions discretely. He could have anything he asked for, as long as he was willing to ask, and if Father heard about his interest in one more quiet, effeminate pastime, he suspected he'd find himself consigned to the archery fields for a season just to stamp it out. Sorcery could be tolerated, as it had plenty of application in battle, but as for the scholarly and bardic arts, no one had ever thought to bar them to the princes royal, for what prince would so degrade himself?

So he borrowed his mother's and she fondly turned a blind eye. The queen was as perplexed by her youngest as the rest of the family, but she enjoyed his peculiarities rather than try to stifle them. This morning, she'd left him alone in her chambers to practice while she and a few of her ladies went riding.

Loki wasn't a great musician and would never be one. He lacked an artist's heart and his air was affected, and at his best he was nothing more than technically competent. It didn't bother him. He enjoyed the chance to create something for no one's benefit but his own, the mathematical progression of the notes and the challenge to his often clumsy fingers. Loki lived entirely too much in his own head and the meandering melodies he liked best set him free for a little while.

He bent over the instrument on the desk, comically intense concentration writ on his face. His usually impeccably neat hair hung down and the tip of his tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth. Usually he was quite aware of his surroundings, but lost in the rousing war ballad (because even in music he couldn't get away from the pervasive theme of smashing giants), he missed the approach of heavy footsteps.

The door was flung open hard enough to bash against the wardrobe. "Mother? I'm to warn you that Freya will be with the Vanir delegation that... will be arriving... this evening?" Thor, typically enough, didn't think to stop delivering his message as he realized that Frigga was nowhere to be seen, and the music had been coming from a very sheepish looking little brother. "Where's Mother?"

"On a ride," Loki said, shifting uncomfortably. He didn't know yet which way Thor would react, and he was reluctant to start spinning lies before his brother's mind managed to grind its way in one direction or another.

"I didn't know you played, brother." Loki relaxed as Thor leaned against the wall, smiling cheerfully. "Don't stop on my account."

That had the potential to complicate matters. If Thor didn't care, then he'd forget about it in a little while. If he decided there was some value to Loki's music, he might insist on talking about it. The idea of Thor appreciating his performance was a pleasant one, but too risky. "Do you need to find Mother now? Or can it wait?"

Thor frowned for a moment as he puzzled that out. "Now, I suspect. There are only a few hours before they arrive."

"And Father dislikes juggling two royal Vanir at a time," Loki explained, knowing Thor didn't have a head for diplomacy. "You'd best ride after her."

"Yes. Come along, then, little bard." Thor clapped his shoulder companionably.

Loki preferred not to, but he could only imagine that the Warriors Three were elsewhere, and Sif was likely with Frigga. Thor didn't handle solitude well. "I'll call us up some horses and meet you by the east gate." Thor wasn't going to go anywhere without a weapon and gear. Loki, for his part, stopped by his room for his favorite old cloak on the way down, but beyond that he felt no need to outfit himself for a short ride after the court ladies.

Once they were off, Thor tried to lead the way, despite Loki having a better idea of where their mother had gone. While the younger prince subtly steered their ride toward the wide-open scrubland that the ladies favored for their expeditions (as opposed to the rougher hills where Thor and his friends tested their prowess as riders), Thor attempted to pontificate. "We haven't been visited by Mother's family in ages. Something must be afoot, don't you think? There's little love lost between Father and Njord, for all our treaties."

He looked so pleased with himself for retaining some knowledge of the affairs of state that Loki made an effort to be gentle. He'd been curious too, but he'd simply thought to find out, rather than regarding the visit as a matter of esoteric mystery. "Officially, they meet to revisit a few small, needling details within a trade policy. From what I understand, though, a significant storehouse maintained by the family has been robbed."

Thor reached over far enough to punch him on the arm. "Listening at doors again, Little Brother?"

"Only some," he said with a smile that was positively catlike in its smugness. "I also went ahead and asked." He sat in on some meetings of Odin's advisers. It was an important part of his education, as he'd serve Thor in such a capacity one day, but the young prince was not invited to _all_ such discussions. He had to be creative. "What I've told you thus far proceeds from respectable channels of inquiry, but if you're too noble to know what comes of stationing myself near interesting keyholes..."

"Nay, tell all, Trickster." Thor grinned at him.

Loki would normally keep back at least a bit of information, but the gossip was especially fine and Thor's enthusiasm was catching. His brother was in a particularly good mood today, and it was pleasant to be praised so. He seriously considered leading their ride a bit astray so his time with Thor's attention would be longer, but they did need to find the queen, curse it all. "The storehouse is mainly concerned with mining and trade records, aboveground. An unimportant outpost watched over by a few minor officials. A secret trapdoor leads to a small cache of treasures of a valuable but mundane sort. Below that, where a satisfied thief would not think to look and hidden by old spells, is a chamber full of ancient magical artifacts. Or it was full, until a week ago."

Thor's eyes widened with enjoyable indignation. "Bold bandits indeed! And how did you come by this secret?"

"Listening outside very important doors."

He knew he'd gone a little too far when Thor's eyes darkened. "You haven't been spying on Father!"

"And if I have?"

"Go to, Loki. You forget yourself."

Always so straightforward, Thor. Loki tried to look innocent, though his thin, pale face and dark hair had taken that power from him as soon as he was too big to toddle endearingly. The best he could do was a certain cavalier superiority to silly rules. "I've nearly concluded my study of concealment magics, brother. How better to practice them?"

Thor laughed despite himself. "You complain like an old woman when confined to your chambers, so I won't carry tales. But some things ought to be above your tricks. Be bold, but not too bold."

"Aye, I'll behave. Do you want to know more of the theft?" Thor nodded, all his excitement back again. He was clearly already composing the tale of his own courageous thwarting of the bold bandits who'd dared trifle in Asgard's magics. "Ledgers were missing from among the shipping manifests, and those silver and copper coins that were in the storehouse for ordinary expenses, a reasonable effort to disguise their larceny as a petty act. The ledgers were found abandoned some leagues away. Of the treasures under the door, they were wholly undisturbed, though they were of no small worth. Through gold and emeralds and even an enchanted circlet pushed our fearless thieves." Loki hadn't yet earned himself the title "silver-tongued," but he was nearly there. His flair for storytelling was as carefully cultivated as the subtler arts of misdirection, largely because it pleased Thor. Any way he could keep the golden prince's eyes on him for a little while. "The oh-so-secret chamber beneath was ransacked. Much of what they made off with is of paltry power, largely of historical import, or useless to anyone but a sorcerer, so either there are rogue enchanters involved or in this, they were indiscriminate."

"An outrage to be sure. Was anything taken of real import?" Thor might be a bit slow, but he knew the rhythms of a good tale and trusted Loki to deliver.

"Much. But most worrisome is a relic from a very old war. It's said it was forged by a dwarf captured after a cave-in cut him off from his people, forced by enemies of Asgard to complete the task." This information had sent Loki to pester the royal archivists. He found the idea truly frightening, and added a bit more theatre to his retelling just to distance himself from the real danger. "A chain of a strange white metal that shines in darkness, fine as a lady's hair but strong as Gungnir's strike. It undoes magic."

Loki intended this to be a terrifying climax, and Thor had been nicely wound up by his lurid telling, but his older brother merely quirked an eyebrow at him. "Troubling for magicians."

"Yes, it would be most unpleasant for an individual sorcerer bound with the item, I suppose." He rolled his eyes, making only a little effort to be subtle about it. "With luck our thieves have only the knowledge of magic that you do, brother. In theory, the chain could be used to undo great magics of the kind that defend the realm." But he'd lost the tuneful, engrossing cadence of a storyteller, simply sounding like his irritable self, and Thor was clearly not interested anymore. He was so easy to lose, more and more in recent days as he approached the age of majority and the charms of ladies and arms easily overpowered the entertainments a younger brother could offer.

They lapsed into silence and Loki sulked. Half an hour into his snit, he raised his head to frown. "We should have spotted them by now."

"There's hardly cover for a party in bright gowns," Thor agreed, looking slowly over the rolling, shrubby landscape. "Do you think they might have ventured into the hills?"

"Unlikely. Mother doesn't care for the scenery. Perhaps we'd better steer toward the woods. I'll try to scry." Scrying wasn't among Loki's strengths. His magical talents, though strong, were a bit out of the usual Aesir way, and he'd had trouble picking up what was only considered intermediate by most apprentices. But he'd try.

Thor was silent while he worked. For most of a minute. "What's the trouble?"

"Scrying is essentially asking the world to tell you what's afoot. The world is seldom cooperative." Loki shook his head. "Something is wrong, though, and wrong in that direction. That much I'm sure of." He nodded to the left and drew his horse over. Loki preferred not to hurry. The situation was urgent, certainly, but not necesssarily an emergency.

Thor was a little higher up. _Perhaps_ he also had sharper eyes. "Someone's hurt. Near the trees. Come on!" He spurred his horse, and Loki did his best to keep up.

He had always had an unreliable relationship with the animals, not particularly gifted at riding and disliked by the horses themselves. But it wasn't difficult enough to divert all his attention, and if Thor could see better, Loki still had the better sense of detail. While the body was still too far away to make out any features, the dead horse lying beside the woman was a large blue roan. That was enough to make Loki hurry. "It's Sif," he called to his brother.

Thor burst into a gallop that his favored charger wouldn't be able to keep up long. Loki didn't try to match the pace on his smaller mare. He'd likely get himself thrown, and Thor was at least something of a field nurse. He was trained for such eventualities along with other tasks that fell to warriors. Loki suspected he didn't pay those lessons much mind, but he'd be better than nothing.

When Loki caught up and hopped out of the saddle, he was pleased to see only some blood and a bruise on Sif's temple. Head wounds were dangerous, but at least she hadn't lain bleeding to death while the princes plodded along telling stories. He pulled water from the air and splashed it on her face with a thought. Her eyes opened, glaring despite their lack of focus.

"What befell you, friend?" Thor asked with a tenderness that Loki liked to pretend didn't make him jealous. He could always be sure of his brother's concern, but he was certain no one would ever look at _him_ quite like that.

She tried to sit up and Loki had to hold her still with magic. He wasn't certain she should be allowed to do anything but lie still just yet. She did summon the strength to toss a rude gesture his way, which was heartening. "They took your mother and two of her ladies. I must be after them!"

"None doubt your valiance, Sif, but you were left unconscious," Thor said soothingly.

And his knack for leadership was all well and good, but not helpful. Loki didn't let him go on. "Who are _they_? Bandits? Mercenaries?" Who had his mother? Any royalty had enemies, for all Asgard was a sweet land for most of its people. Some of those who might stoop to kidnapping a queen and her ladies might be honorable, but most not at all.

She looked blearily at him a moment and he had to bite his tongue to keep from snapping. Head wound. "I took them for ordinary miscreants, but when I'd beaten most of them back, it was a Jotun who struck me down."

Head wound or not, it had taken her so long to reach that point? Loki stared at her in horror a moment, then jumped up and shoved his foot in a stirrup. He was immediately shoved backward and realized that he'd tried to mount Thor's horse. He was lucky it hadn't kicked him. "Take her to the palace and bring reinforcements," he said sharply, moving to correct his mistake.

Thor looked a bit dazed at being told what to do. Sif spoke for him. "And what do you expect to do?"

Loki swallowed hard as he clambered into his saddle. "Know where they are, at the very least. Stall them until help arrives. Those vile brutes have _my mother_." A long-term, deliberate scrying would give him a splitting headache, but he didn't see any other way. He was no hunter and there was no clear trail, though the signs of battle were stamped onto the ground around them. Following the magical prompting, he kicked the horse and took off.

Even a poor horseman moving alone could cover ground more quickly than a large group trying to stay quiet with three captives to manage. Three Asgardian captives. Frigga had never been a warrior by vocation, but she was a wicked fencer and hard as nails when she wished to be, and Sif was only the fiercest of her retinue by a small margin. Loki found them before the headache the spell caused made it impossible to carry on, in any case.

He counted seven men, all desperate characters by the look of them, fallen low enough to throw their lot in with monsters. They rode in tight formation with the horses bearing bound captives in the center. He saw no Jotun. While it was nice to think that perhaps Sif had been hallucinating, he suspected it was more likely that the horrors had gone ahead or were lurking somewhere.

No time. Loki was generally a master of finesse and subtlety. He carefully measured his use of magic unless he was safely ensconced in the library with his studies, and he wrapped his spells in silence and stillness that made the work far more difficult and was usually only the purview of masters. Not now, though. They had his mother. They'd wounded Sif, and the other ladies were likely nearly as battered. He had no particular love for them, but the insult to Asgard was profound. And they were in his home. Frost giants had always made his skin crawl. Even the stories had horrified him beyond any other tales of monsters he'd heard as a child.

Loki's most reliable magics were elemental spells. They were early in the standard curriculum for apprentices, but he'd taken to them with particular aplomb. His best was water, with its attendant sisters mist and ice, but he didn't dare use that when their true masters were about. He'd need to rely on his lesser skills and hope he could be bold enough.

He tore the ground open in front of the band. To move so much earth required that he speak the words aloud and use both hands to rapidly draw the signs that kept him from sapping his own power too quickly. He might have dazed himself completely otherwise. But while he halted their progress on the road, he unavoidably called attention to himself.

Five of the men collected around the women and Loki laughed. There was an edge of hysteria in it—he was not a warrior and he had no head for this sort of thing—but he'd been afraid they'd all rush him. Two, he could handle. Thank heaven for pride. One had a mace of heavy, almost pure iron, and the metal sang to him. Whenever he used a lot of magic, the whole world seemed to whisper to him to do more. Usually he resisted that siren call, but today he embraced it, reaching for the weapon with his mind. In a moment of giddy inspiration he introduced fire, and the bandit screamed horribly, trying to drop the mace and losing fingers as gravity finally claimed the weapon. Cooked.

Loki froze, fighting nausea. He hadn't meant to do that. He was still venomously angry and afraid for his mother, but the reality of his foolish mission was suddenly impossible to ignore. A constant diet of fantasies about battles really should have prepared him a bit better. Reeling, he barely had the presence of mind to unhorse the other man bearing down on him, wasting power and doing little damage by simply pushing like a fresh recruit trying to learn the process of spellwork. The mercenary hit the ground, but he and his sword were after Loki's horse immediately.

Carrying a weapon was pointless for Loki. He'd never trained and he lacked the coordination to even pretend not to be a rank amateur. With no armament, there was no real advantage to being the one on a horse, and the already strained and tired mare had never liked him. When he failed to rally fast enough to keep the man from striking at her legs with his sword, she threw him.

Loki managed to cushion his fall a little with a sharp rush of air, but that was more drain on his magic and the landing knocked the wind out of him anyway. The man he'd only mildly inconvenienced nearly spitted him through the throat before another of them called him off.

"Stay the blade, man. That's a prince you have there. Worth a damn sight more than the wenches."

"That's a witch. You saw what he did." The man didn't lower the point, but he didn't raise it. Loki shook enough of his fear and revulsion to reach over and catch hold of a tree root with a tendril of power. The towering oak reached down with a branch and pulled the man skyward, like a lady's hand plucking a flower.

The urge to remove one more threat and squeeze was there, but he could see the first man he'd attacked sobbing in pain. He tried to rally himself as a royal instead. "There are more coming. You won't escape, and whatever ransom you expected to garner this way is out of reach. Release your captives now and you may keep your miserable lives."

Now if only they didn't question whether the younger prince could make such an offer, didn't notice that he was pale and unsteady and alone. He just needed them to let their prisoners go, and then he didn't care what happened to them. He couldn't imagine what the plan was, how they thought they would escape with the queen when they were in easy reach of not only Asgard's elite troops but her mightiest sorcerers. Masters who made easy work of all the spells Loki struggled with or had yet to learn, who could snatch people safely away from unseemly hands and swallow the miscreants in burning mists from afar.

It should have worked. It should have at least made them hesitate, drawn curiosity from a few of the mercenaries who'd seen a skinny scarecrow of a prince well short of manhood defeat two of their own. Instead, one laughed, and Frigga managed to turn toward him. She couldn't talk around her gag. That, he had the magic to fix. Twisting his fingers and whispering harshly, he tore the rag stuffed in her mouth away.

At least she didn't hesitate, used as she was to having a creative sorcerer for a son. "Behind you, child!"

Loki spun. There was nothing there, but something prickled at his sense of magic, and there was a gray shifting in the corner of his eye. True invisibility required juggling several sorts of illusion magic and was difficult for even a master sorcerer, but misdirection was simpler. He knew enough to be sure his eyes were being forced away from whatever was stalking him, but not enough to be able to disrupt it. He tried a spell to neutralize other magics around him, but that was unreliable at the best of times, and the confounding effect was likely keeping him from focusing wherever the attention was needed. The other mercenaries were laughing and Frigga telling him to run was cut off with what he had to assume was another gag. How dare they lay hands on her? Furious, he lashed out in random directions, forgetting what it felt like to know he'd hurt someone and just needing it to stop. Fire drained energy, much as its destructive capability appealed at first, and he tried a blade of ice. It fell to water in his hands and refused to reform. His mouth went dry as he realized what was taunting him.

Analytical even now, Loki had just enough attention to spare to be indignant. The Jotun weren't supposed to have proper sorcerers. Their magic was old and imprecise, stuff of cold stone and colder ice and the clumsy alchemy of herbs and potions. Or so every Asgardian apprentice learned. Perhaps he ought to take that up with his tutors.

Then there was a cry, a thud, and a huge, ghastly form collapsed beside him with Thor's sword in its back. His brother was pink-cheeked and panting, but apparently not so exhausted that he couldn't save them. It was all Loki could do not to hug him, and he didn't think he'd hugged Thor since he was half as tall as now.

Sparked by anger and the thrill of his rescue, Loki was also sharply aware that his reserves were low, and fighting the inexplicably bespelled Jotun had taken a particular toll on his magic. Time to be clever and let Thor hit people with heavy things. He dropped to his knees, making contact with the ground and sketching his runes more permanently in the dirt to boost his spell. More time and more preparation meant he'd need less power.

Thor approached with his blooded sword at the ready. One of the mercenaries pulled a bow and another finally had the sense to hold a blade to Frigga's throat. "Come a step closer, highness. Do."

Loki abandoned his preparations for a moment and repeated his attack on his mother's gag, this time targeting all the prisoners' bonds. He was dizzy after he'd done it, but they were all freed, and Frigga twisted with brilliant speed to punch the villain off his horse. Asgardian queens were not easy prey, and she'd had time to rest and get angry.

Taking his chance, Loki completed his work and everything rooted in the ground grabbed for the mercenaries and their horses, dragging them to the ground and holding on. Loki reeled. He'd used more magic in the last few minutes than on some of his daylong examinations, and he felt somewhere between sick and disembodied. But Frigga and her ladies were rushing toward them and everything would be alright. And perhaps, a little voice inside him whispered, he might just once be recognized for his part.

"There's help coming, Mother." Thor smiled winningly, already the hero in his own mind. "Go up the road to meet them. We'll stay to make sure this filth doesn't escape."

"My good boys," she said with an exhausted smile. Thor had to bend to let her kiss his forehead. She'd have had to duck a bit to do the same to Loki even if he hadn't forgotten to get up. She bent double to kiss the top of his head, and said, in fiercer tones, "My good, _good_ boys." He smiled blearily at the praise.

The women hurried away. Thor hooked his arms under Loki's and hoisted him up. "I believe Mother just took your horse."

"Oh. ...Good."

"And the other two are likely to share mine. I tethered him far enough away that they wouldn't hear my approach."

"That was very clever."

"Sif's idea." Thor frowned at him, then at the groaning captives. "Are you still maintaining that spell?"

"To some extent. It's tied to me. Whenever one of them presses at his bonds, holding them in place requires a bit from from me."

"It might be best if you stopped. You look ill, brother. I'm sure they'll surrender properly now." Thor clapped him on the back.

"I'll release them one by one. You can take the rope left over and tie them up as I do." Thor nodded and let him go. Loki tried hard to ignore the urge to sink back to the ground as he released his control over one man's bonds.

Slow going. He hoped he wouldn't faint. He'd seen it happen to one apprentice. She'd overextended herself by simply practicing too long without rest, and then a surprise visit from one of the palace's masters had led her to attempt a showy demonstration. She'd slept for a solid day and was still avoiding that particular sorcerer.

But that hyperawareness of the magic around him hadn't abated, and at the moment he was tied to the soil and all its life. It was terribly uncomfortable, and it took him a moment to realize that wasn't increasing by the moment simply because he was too tired to be overstimulated. "Brother, several someones are coming."

"Oh, is our relief here?"

"No, from the other direction. And not naturally. There's something strange..." He shook his head, trying to clear it a little, but if he were to release his link to the ground, he'd let the mercenaries go, and Thor only had half of them bound. "A great deal of strangeness, like many magics in one place... At once..." Finally, his groggy mind snapped into place. A Jotun who'd been nearly invisible. A quest that would bring the awful creatures to Asgard and justify collecting dregs like these bandits. A secret cellar once full of magical artifacts. "Leave them, brother. It's time to go."

"Leave the bastards who meant to kidnap Mother?" Thor looked more confused than anything else. He knew enough to assume Loki had a reason, but doubtless lacked the creativity to think of one that would suffice.

"I suspect we're about to meet some number of monsters with a very large number of magical relics."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean forget about the-" Too late. Quite suddenly, they were all surrounded by a heavy, freezing mist. If Loki had tried a similar magic, the fog would have rolled in and thickened. This one simply appeared, so dense he couldn't even see Thor.


	2. Chapter 2

"Brother!"

"I'm coming. Keep talking!"

Loki heard him stumble closer and tried to meet him. "Here. I'm here. Reach your hand out, and as soon as I have it, we run."

Fingers bumped against his and for a moment he relaxed, but the hand was too large, and its cold wasn't the cold of the mist, but deeper than a midwinter's moonrise. He tried to yank his hand away, but the beast could navigate in the mist better than he. A huge hand knocked him across the jaw, hard enough to daze when he was already so weak. He stumbled back, but before he made any progress at all (and even half conscious he was exaggerating his reaction), the same hand caught his hair and held on with impossible strength. The slightest flailing attempt to escape brought tears to his eyes.

Off to the side, he heard curing and thrashing as some poor soul attempted to subdue Thor. Which all went suddenly silent. "Brother!" No answer. "Thor!" He lunged forward despite being neatly caught and whimpered at the pain despite his best efforts. "If you've hurt him, you're every one of you as good as dead! Thor!" Loki tried desperately to cast a spell, any spell. He settled on fire. At least it lashed out easily. But his weak attempt sputtered to nothing in his hand.

A throaty, deep laugh came from behind him. The mist began to disperse. Loki looked around desperately for his brother. The older prince was gagged and struggling but intact. He should have been able to make _some_ sound in response to Loki's cries. It was only when he tore his eyes away from his brother that he realized they were not standing in an overgrown bit of Asgardian woodland but a desolate, icy plain.

Thor had been transported before he was. While he was crying for his brother, they'd been on different worlds. That was a chilling thought. But not one to dwell on. The lesser roads between plane were unstable, demanding, awful things, warned against by those few old manuscripts that mentioned them at all. A safe return meant not just freeing themselves but finding their way to the Bifrost.

He didn't have an ounce of strength left, but his green eyes met Thor's blue ones and he nodded, trying to be reassuring. Loki was fairly sure he would pass out if he tried another spell, but as long as it didn't kill him and it incapacitated the three towering monsters holding them, Thor could drag him away.

They were the masters of ice and snow, but they wouldn't expect a young Aesir to turn that on them. If he could deliver enough of a blow at once... He opened his mouth to improvise a spell.

He was cuffed again, and before he could dismiss the pain, his hands were quickly tied and something that wasn't rope slid around his neck, feeling more like a necklace chain than bindings. The Jotun holding him let go entirely as though he were no longer any concern. He was about to shout his disastrous spell anyway, but he realized before he'd even raised a hand that the numbing chill of the chain wasn't simply the cold that encompassed everything in this terrible realm.

Loki had never been bothered by cold. This wasn't cold. This was agony. The sensation slid like melting ice out from whatever it was around his neck, forcing every muscle to tense, then release. He crumpled into the snow like a dropped doll, breathing hard and fast as he tried not to cry out. A burning sensation followed the rippling muscle spasms, then finally blessed numbness.

The Jotun were speaking in their own gutteral tongue. It sounded like the sound was coming from underwater. One of them picked him up and slung him over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He winced and whimpered but there was nothing he could do but try to force his head to turn to get a glimpse of Thor.

He reassured himself that his brother was there, and in the process of his craning, saw what looked like a thick horse hair hanging down from his neck, swinging too fast to look at. After several awkward attempts, he caught it in his mouth and held it still enough to see.

A chain of a strange white metal that shone in darkness, if not quite so fine as a lady's hair, as he'd described it. He was learning just what the relic would do to a sorcerer. It had attacked his own magic first, and he _was_ his magic, dedicated and talented as he was.

Now that he knew to look for it, he felt things slipping away. The alertness charm he placed on himself every morning out of habit was gone, not that the child's spell really had much effect even at the best of times. A geas another apprentice had laid on him for practice (binding him to turn up at the temple on a certain morning, just as he always did, so as not to inconvenience anyone) had vanished. The clasp on his cloak bore a subtle little ward that helped him stay unnoticed when he wished, and he could feel it melting away.

All the little bits and pieces of magic that clung to him were disappearing. He'd never realized there were no many or how much the simple little leftovers and shortcuts effected him.

A loud scraping sound and the smell of wetter air called his attention, but before he'd managed to twitch around and see, his captor dropped him through the door he'd opened in what looked on the way down like a random patch of ice.

He rolled to the side, ignoring his bruises, in time that Thor didn't land on him. The door above them closed and they were plunged into darkness. Beside him, Thor tried to curse through his gag and thrashed some. Loki sighed.

"Brother, a moment and my hands will be free. Stay still and I'll untie you." Loki had thin wrists and a gift for wriggling, and his captor had been inattentive, clearly believing the chain would do all the work needed. Thor quieted while Loki slipped his bonds, then carefully felt his way to Thor's gag and the rough ropes. His hands were still shaking and whenever the relic found a new spell to neutralize, it found some new way to hurt, but he managed to get the knots off.

He heard the rustle of Thor's hair as he shook his head. "Conjure us a light and we'll find our way out, shall we?"

Calling a little witchlight was the first spell most sorcerers learned. Most Asgardians could manage the small charm even without training. Thor had even sustained one for a few seconds one rainy, dull afternoon, and he had no head for magic at all. Loki tried it, just to see what would happen. Nothing at all. He reached for the place where his magic smoldered and found nothing. He swallowed hard. "Even that is beyond me right now."

"Are you so weary as that?" Thor's concern was easy to hear, but Loki didn't want it. He'd always told himself that it didn't matter if he was physically weak, that his magic made him the equal of any, even the crown prince. Without it, he was nothing at all.

"My power is bound, brother. Our abductors are our thieves as well, and I'm finding you were right to worry what that chain that undoes magic could to a sorcerer." There was an unsteady hrillness in his voice he had to bite down, hiding the threat of panic. "I swear to you that could I have called so much as a spark I'd have found a way to make them pay for this indignity already."

"Guide me to it." Thor's hand found his in the dark ."I can handle a little chain."

"Such an artifact would never have survived if physical strength could break it," Loki said.

"Perhaps you enchanters just assumed as much!" Thor's bluster made him roll his eyes, but he brought his brother's hand to the thin chain around his throat. He shivered when his fingers met the metal. He was no sorcerer, but every Asgardian had some magic in him. "Tis colder than all of Jotunheim," he said, sounding indignant. He tried to snap the chain for a few moments, Loki trying not to let on that the effort was choking him a bit. "You spoke truly. It's stronger than any steel."

"I did warn you." He shivered as he felt another old spell fall away, a complex binding that he had worked out with the help of a journeyman and two other apprentices to bolster his weak eyes. It was digging deeper and deeper. At least it would soon run out of old magics.

"I'll feel my way around our cell, then. You may stay and rest." Thor ruffled his hair, annoying both because the gesture belonged to their much younger days and because he half missed, scruffing the side of Loki's head instead.

Thor stood and explored blindly, calling out his discoveries to Loki, who tried to care. Their cell was a rough circle not much wider than Thor was tall. The walls were coated in something soft and slimy. The gap of the door refused to be found.

When Thor had been wandering for a few minutes, prodding at everything he could think of, the walls began to glow. The light was a sickly yellow and increased in slow pulses, still a bit painful after so much darkness. Thor came to sit beside him as the little gap in an ice cave was slowly illuminated. The light seemed to come from the slimy growths on the sides of the cave, and Loki had no notion of how long it would last.

"I still can't see where they dropped us in. They must have simply resealed the ice behind them." Hopefully they'd remembered that living creatures required air.

"Cowards."

Loki nodded his assent vaguely. Insulting them wouldn't cheer him up the way it would Thor. He turned and got his first good look at his brother, squinting a little without the spell that helped his eyes focus properly on anything other than old words on old parchment. Thor was considerably more battered than he was. Probably because he hadn't given up simply because he was tired and a frost giant was pulling his hair. Loki quietly cursed himself for not fighting some little, just for form's sake.

At least Thor healed fast. The bruises and gouges wouldn't last long. He was also shivering terribly, and that wouldn't help with healing. "Here, try not to freeze on me," he said, unfastening the no longer magical clasp and holding out his plain, soft cloak.

Thor smiled, apparently willing to skip the heroic posturing of refusing the offer. He knew Loki was oddly comfortable in the cold. But as he took the cloak, Loki's arms spasmed as another old spell was stripped away, and Thor could hardly help noticing. "Is this too heavy for you?"

"No, Thor, it is a piece of cloth," Loki said testily. "The relic is digging back into all the old magics I carry with me and taking them apart. It's not so unpleasant as when it shut down my own magic, but there are layers and layers of spellwork hovering about."

"Why?" Thor blinked.

"It depends." Loki was rather calmed by the chance to explain something. He always liked being pedantic, and at the moment, he was assured of Thor's attention. "It's already stripped away recent things, spells the other apprentices and I practiced on each other and charms I carry. It's eating away at older spells, now, things I cast when I was young and put too much power into, or that Mother helped with. I can't quite see you, by the by." A prince of Asgard who was nearsighted. Humiliating. But best that Thor knew his vision was blurred, should an opportunity for escape actually present itself. "It's unpleasant every time it happens."

"Poor Loki," Thor said with a surprising gentleness. Loki found himself suddenly bashful, forced by his brother's sincerity to actually accept the sympathy for a moment. "Have you many left to lose?"

There was something ominous in the way he phrased that, but Loki tried not to take it to heart. "Nay, but it'd probably be wisest to wait until the last power is stripped off me before I try to accomplish anything."

"Alright." Thor nodded agreeably. "Indeed, perhaps that would be the best course of action if we can find no way to escape. Father will send an army after us, I'm sure." He looked sour at that, disliking the idea of needing to be rescued.

"If Mother escaped, if nothing worse has struck in Asgard, and if this outrage was perpetrated by Jotun working under the auspices of their own rulers, then yes, the response will be swift," Loki said sourly. "But I suspect we are well hidden if our abductors were working alone, and to antagonize Asgard would be foolhardy."

"And their king is a mewling coward," Thor said. When he spoke, Loki realized he was merely repeating what all Asgardian children learned and reminded himself that many of his expectations had already been upended. Underestimating their enemies was a serious mistake.

But he didn't correct Thor. The crown prince was happier with simple ideas. He just went on. "We may be here a long time while our people determine what course to take and how to find us. And even without my magic, we've your strength and my tricks. I'm sure we'll find our way out. Just as soon as I stop feeling ill every time this wretched relic tears away a ward against spring allergies."

"...What?"

"You probably have one, too. Mother gets these occasional enthusiasms."

"Does it work?" The question was fair. Frigga had progressed as far as journeyman sorcery, though she'd had no natural talent for it. She way with sorcery was what Loki's was with music.

"Do you have spring allergies?"

"No, but I don't believe I ever have."

"Then I suppose we'll never know." Loki sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. His hair immediately stuck in the glowing stuff, and he wiped it off distastefully, coming away with faintly shining, sticky fingers. He shuddered and exhaled slowly, ignoring the twinging sensation as the last spell was shredded. "There, I believe it's done."

"Good. Do you want the cloak back?"

"No, you stay warm. It makes less difference to me." He'd have appreciated the warmth, not to mention the softness and the smell of home, but it was doing Thor more active good. "You know, brother, when we return home, I suspect you'll be able to convince Father you've call to carry Mjolnir henceforth."

Thor laughed appreciatively and punched his shoulder. "I will be sure to tell him you said so."

"Only if you promise to keep it pointed away from-" Loki's voice faltered as he felt the collar strike again. But he hadn't been aware of any spell at all. Everything else he'd managed to identify before it was torn away, recognize whose handiwork he was losing and what the spell had (or had not) been doing. This one he didn't recognize, and it resisted the attack as only his own magic had done. It didn't hurt like having the chain put on in the first place, but it hurt. A slow, cold burn slid over his skin, and it wavered in its path as the spell fought the artifact.

"Loki?" He only realized he was teetering when Thor reached out to steady him. "I thought you said it was finished?"

"I thought it was," he said, voice strained. "I don't know what the spell is. It's old and powerful and yet I didn't know it was there at all..." He swallowed.

"What kind of spell?"

Thor's questions were a bit absurd, but Loki was grateful for them. He had something to focus on beyond the achingly slow waves of cold. "Nothing I know. There are many kinds of magic. Illusion, transmutation, concealment." He shivered. "I can feel its absence now, but I never knew it was there. That shouldn't be possible."

"Loki, you're, eh, turning blue."

"What?"

"Look." Thor firmly took his hand and lifted it to right in front of Loki's eyes. He wasn't sure he could have done it himself. He'd spoken truly. Random patches of skin were darkening, shifting to a lifeless, cold blue, and while the edges of the color pulsed and wavered, they gradually expanded. Loki strained his eyes to see, forced his fingers to press against the spots.

"It must be some frost giant contrivance. Here." Absurdly, Thor placed the cloak back on his shoulders. Loki lowered his head, realization dawning. "You must be mistaken. This is magic coming on, not being destroyed." He sounded confident, but there was something forced in it.

Loki lowered his head, staring intently at the hand that was no longer his own. If it had just been the color he might have taken Thor's part, thought it was some strange effect of where he was or the workings of the magic-eating chain. But the blue spot was less yielding, colder, textured not like honest flesh but smooth stone masquerading as skin, and marred by strange lines. It was harder to recognize on his own small hand, but he'd been cuffed by hands like these not an hour ago.

"Thor..." He hated the waver in his voice. He sounded like a child. He was frightened and trying _not _to think was quite contrary to his nature, but it was all he could do to fight the evidence of his eyes.

"Is it hurting you, brother?" Thor's hands settled on his shoulders. He spoke too loudly, the cheer in his voice cloyingly artificial. Even if he didn't realize what, even the thick-headed oaf knew something was very wrong.

Loki kept his head down. He was very particular about having short hair for sheer contrariness's sake. He'd always understood he'd never have his brother's charisma, and to try would only make him pathetic. So he'd settled on being aggressively plain. But now he wished he could have had something more to hide behind. He raised his hands to cover his face, but they were all blue now. Speaking around his palms, he let himself think out loud because if he didn't do _something_, he'd go mad entirely. "The only way such a spell might escape my notice is if it had been there from the beginning. Let an ox grow accustomed to a yoke and it proceeds apace, after all..."

"I have been beside you all your life, brother," Thor said, finally dropping that awful facade of exuberance. "Why, I was the third to hold you after you were born. Before Father, even."

"What of when Mother was expecting?" he asked, all the life falling out of his voice. He sounded as cold as he felt, and as lifeless. "What do you recall of that, if you remember being handed me?"

"I saw little of either of our parents. It was the last campaign of the war." Thor sounded defensive. "And I don't believe women generally involve little boys in such affairs."

"But she wasn't in isolation, was she? Tell me one thing you recall from before someone informed you you had a new little brother." He told himself that Thor not recalling wouldn't prove anything. He wasn't known for his memory, and he'd been very small himself. Truly, likely didn't really remember Loki's birth at all, and had just constructed it piecemeal from stories.

"Why would I recall something from the days when all my occupation was playing with toy knights and horses?" Thor said soothingly.

"Did you just tell me not to fret because you _did_ remember?"

Thor paused, swallowed audibly, and said, "Oh, but I do recall now. Mother... was feeling poorly. As women do. And she traveled out to take the air by the sea. She did take me along, but I was busy playing in the surf all the while, and..."

"Thor, you are a dreadful liar."

"I am not! I mean, I'm not lying."

Loki cracked a small, slightly mad smile. "For one thing, Mother did not visit the seashore to alleviate the discomforts of childbearing while war raged on all sides. For another, that was what happened when Idunn was born. I was there."

"Ah. I'd forgotten." Thor looked away. "I still—I believe no such thing, Loki. Not of our parents and not of you. It's some Jotun trick. You are still an apprentice sorcerer, after all. There are many things beyond your ken, are there not?"

"Tell me what you see, Thor." There was still some hope that Thor was right. Loki lowered his hands and looked up. He was glad for his blurred vision (though the light seemed different now, as he supposed it would through eyes like rubies). He didn't have to see the details as Thor struggled not to recoil. "Well, then."

"Loki... Even if it were true, and it isn't, you are my brother."

"_I_ am the monster you swore to destroy. And lucky you, to have a small Jotun near enough to throttle." He covered his mouth to stifle a giggle. _If it were true._ Only Thor. It was clear, and that meant all he'd ever known was a lie, and only he and the oaf had been in the dark. Rather embarrassing, that.

"Brother." Thor actually shook him. He was generally careful with his strength, but Loki felt his teeth rattle together as his head was whipped back. "You are the cleverest of us all, are you not? What monster could be my trickster? Could master magics so quickly that only your age prevents you from testing into journeyman rank at the temple? It is a trick. A lie. Perhaps they seek to drive us apart so we cannot plot our escape, or sow strife among the royal family!"

For Thor, that was rather good thinking. It quite failed to convince Loki, nonetheless. "The monsters who took us today could use ancient artifacts like masters and planned well enough to abduct us. I find it easier to readjust my thinking on the Jotun than deny the evidence of my eyes." He looked away and his voice fell to a trembling whisper. "Perhaps my eyes were only meant for light like this, and that's why Asgard strains them so..."

Thor turned him back, glaring. "So the vile brutes have some cunning to them. What does that signify? Do you honestly believe such a thing of Father and Mother?"

"Father? Oh, dear, foolish brother mine..." He nearly choked on the word _brother_. "It's only me that you and Sif call lie-smith, yes." Thor blanched a bit and Loki was satisfied and sorry in equal measure for revealing his knowledge of that little jibe. "But it's the one way _Father_ is more like me than you. Though I suppose it's mere coincidence that we have anything in common at all."

"You shouldn't speak so," Thor said a bit weakly.

"Perhaps he shouldn't bring up the children of monsters to think themselves people!" His voice was rising in pitch and volume. He hated it when that happened, when he suffered such a loss of control, but he didn't quite care. He just knew that he should, and in turn that his apathy signified something frightening.

Thor tried to say something calming. Loki didn't allow himself to hear it. He lurched to his feet, needing to move even if it only meant a few strides to the farthest wall. It felt like more of a journey, weakened as he was. He braced his hands on the icy surface, ignoring the glowing sludge with its sickening texture and pulsing pressure on his fingers. He wasn't good at ignoring things.

He'd taken such pride in his easy mastery of difficult water magic. In being so hardy in the face of cold, the one way he seemed to be tougher than Thor. He'd had to fasten onto those little advantages, lest the weight of his own failings crush him. He'd never felt like a proper Asgardian. In a way, it was a relief to know he simply was not, only a pitiful imposter kept on hand for the furthering of who knew what scheme. He tried to laugh and a sob escaped him.

"Loki." He hadn't heard Thor move, but his voice was close.

He didn't turn. "Best for us all if you throttle me now, I think. You're strong enough. And a runt of a Jotun falling straight into your grasp?" He closed his eyes and braced his forehead against the wall. "Good fortune, my prince." He didn't even know what he was saying. For the first time since he was a little one, he didn't plan before he opened his mouth, didn't choose every word and all its layers of meaning. He didn't know if he meant to taunt Thor or punish himself or even really wish for death.

"Loki, brother, look at me, please?"

"I am _awfully_ small, now that I think on it. Small among Aesir. Was I born a runt, do you think? The magics I just shed might have done something to stunt me. Overcompensated, even."

"Loki!"

He didn't care the least bit, but he went on babbling. "Perhaps they don't keep runts. Savage horrors. Do you suppose I was sold for chattel or simply left on the ice somewhere? A memento of a rousing war? The spoils of victory?"

Thor caught his shoulder and spun him around. Loki reeled, more unsteady than he'd realized, but Thor didn't let him fall. Indeed, the sweet, stupid future of Asgard tried to catch and hold him. Loki pulled away and held himself against the wall, trying in vain to lean away from Thor's hand on his arm. He was sure he saw disgust, for all Thor's face was blurred, and he closed his eyes against it. He deserved it. He was disgusted himself; it was a struggle to keep bile from rising in his throat. But he had had a lifetime of Thor's disdain just barely balanced by love, and he couldn't bear the upending of that. Of all the miseries he faced now, this was the worst. He'd have done anything to hide the discovery from his brother, yet fate demanded Thor stand sole witness.

He cringed when he felt movement. Perhaps Thor really would dispose of the monster before him. At least that was simple, even if Loki supposed he'd have to live long enough to feel his heart break.

Thor pulled his hood up. His eyes snapped open in confusion to see his brother fiddle with the clasp. He opened his mouth, but no words came.

Thor smiled at him sheepishly. "If you're right, we can't let our captors see, or things will only get worse. If I am, no need to give them the satisfaction. Here." He untied a red sash from his waist, a token from some admirer most likely, and wrapped it around Loki's neck a few times, mimicking the way travelers shielded themselves in the mountain passes. "Keep your hands hidden and there's not much to give you away."

"Thor..."

"You are wrong, by the way. Now rest. You looked ill before you went blue. I'm sure you still look ill for... Whatever that would mean."

"For a frost giant."

"None of that. Rest." Thor steered him to the floor.

Loki huddled immediately into the smallest space he could. His bony body didn't curl so much as jaggedly fold, and he sat with his chin on his knees, swathed in the borrowed scarf that smelled of sweat and horses. He'd be put off by that most times, but the piece of the world he'd thought he belonged to was somewhat calming. Letting Thor look after him would be much more soothing, but soft weaving and the scent of the warrior's practice fields could not suddenly come to their senses and despise him. This was safer.

Thor spoke again, urging him to rest. He didn't answer. His brother's voice seemed to come from far away, reduced to meaningless sounds. His skin crawled and he was cold inside and out. Perhaps this was the way all the vermin lived, ice all the way down, and no wonder they would never be more than brutes. Loki might weather cold without discomfort, but he relished heat. The hearths and furs of Asgard had melted him a little, made him almost real, and now he was sure those memories of warmth could only be a torment. He wanted to scream, to bleed, to tear his way free of a body that revolted him. He'd never been comfortable in his old skin, but compared to this unyielding prison...

"Loki." Thor's solid arm wrapped around him and Loki realized he was crying. Not an odd, choking gasp of the kind that might burst through his defenses and be free, but slow, steady tears, washing away the last of his treasured control. He let his brother hold him.

Funny. He had no trouble questioning Odin's part in this. Indeed, he was entirely ready never to call the man Father again. The affection between them had always been faint and uncertain, a distant second to his love for Thor. Loki had learned to control his resentment of being forever the unfavored, but the old hurt made it so easy to accept that a man who was always a king first and a father second had played such a game. Frigga was harder to accept, but he knew she would do whatever her lord wished of her, and she had such a gentle spirit that it was easy to see her conceding to nurture even little monster, once it was wrapped in soft skin and set in her arms.

But he couldn't think of Thor as anything but his brother. Not now as he stalwartly denied the obvious and tried to soften the staggering blow of it all, not ever.

Thor shifted and a soft tapping sound caught his attention. Loki opened his eyes and realized that his tears were ice by the time they left his cheeks. He really was frost all the way through.

"It's only the air. We _are_ in an ice cave."

"Saltwater doesn't freeze, Thor. Not naturally."

His brother made no answer, but his grip tightened and Loki surrendered. Physically, anyway. His mind was in no less turmoil, but it did lessen the aches and the exhaustion to let Thor support him, and it stopped the shaking. With only the merest protests, he let Thor persuade him to lie down and rest.

The idea flitted across his mind that it would be very easy to end a little monster this way, with Loki lying prone and Thor's strength. He didn't bother rejecting it, and the poisonous little thought only flew away when sleep claimed him.

Loki had always been a lucid dreamer, and on the best nights he could control his dreams entirely, shaping a world he wanted. At the worst, and he had never been worse in his life, he was completely aware that he was asleep and completely powerless to do anything about it.

The bloodthirsty tales he and Thor had lapped up as children had given him plenty of ideas of what would become of a Jotun in the power of Asgardians. Those stories judged too gruesome for young ears were of course the most appealing, and he'd climbed up on Thor's shoulders to listen at keyholes and the cracks in windows as soldiers reminisced. The most indelible mark on his memory had been left by the image of a Jotun general who had attacked villages after their garrisons left, culling the old and enslaving the young. When he was finally defeated, he had been left to the weak he'd preyed upon to take their vengeance, chained upside down to a tree and taking days and days to die from the paltry blows they meted out.

He thought it most unfair that the dream vision was so vivid. He didn't even know his own face, after all. His mind simply showed him himself as he'd ever been, only the colors changed, and yet the crowd did not hesitate. There had never been any love for the second prince in the common people.

Yet in the crowd was a second Jotun, a tiny one, alongside his golden brother. Dreams could be like that. The little Thor pulled the little Loki in what had once been a wooden siege tower. He'd taken the top off the toy and turned it into a decidedly warlike wagon for brother-toting. It had taken Thor a long time to understand that Loki was not, in fact, a particularly amusing doll for him to play with. No wonder, perhaps, if he'd been handed a new brother out of nowhere and told not to ask questions.

But while Thor was just as memory would show, the dream wouldn't let him see the child he'd been. Loki watched himself cry for his brother's attention, beg Thor to look and tell him what was wrong and make it better, while the crown prince just watched the torturous execution and laughed.

He always had been prone to nightmares.


	3. Chapter 3

A grinding noise dragged him out of the dream. His eyes snapped open and he found his head resting on Thor's lap, and bless him, Thor was already moving the hood and the sash to cover Loki's face more fully. Loki tucked his hands as deep inside his sleeves as he could and stayed where he was. It would be easier to look up without dislodging his flimsy disguise from the ground, and if he was going to play pathetic, might as well start now.

Even the gray light of Jotunheim was blinding after becoming accustomed to the sickly glow of the sludge on the walls. He had to turn away and Thor cursed. A moment later, a ragged rope ladder thudded the floor.

"There are two bowmen on you," growled a deep voice. "Come up one at a time, and slow."

Thor growled wordlessly, but there seemed no other course of action. Loki kept his head down, watching Thor's boots stomp angrily across the floor and begin the climb. From above, a few seconds later, he heard the crown prince's most imperious tones. "Let me help my brother. Your coward's trick of a relic has injured him."

"Your coward's trick, whelp." Commands were given in that grinding language. The sound of it made Loki cringe, and he usually enjoyed the study of languages. Thor jumped down beside him.

"Climb on my back," he said, sounding angry. Loki hoped it was at the Jotun. The _other_ Jotun. "I suppose it's lucky you're a bit undersized."

"No, just climb above me." He dropped his voice. "Our best course of action is to keep them from seeing me clearly." Loudly again, he added, "You ought to save your strength."

Thor frowned, but did as he asked, and the larger boy's body and his own cloak made it hard to see Loki as he clambered up, shielded him as Thor helped him up onto the ice.

It rankled what little pride remained to him that Thor held him with one arm, glaring daggers at all and sundry as though he were a frightened child. But if it would let him hide his skin... At least he had a decent view of their captors from the chest down. The one who seemed to be in command was the largest, just how he'd expect the savages to arrange their hierarchy. There were five more now. Three of those were women, he noted with mild interest. He'd heard that the Jotun didn't involve women in battle, and the discrepancy fit his theory that these were outlaws of one kind of another. Revolutionaries, he guessed, given their interest in royal bargaining chips.

The wind was loud and piercing, and it covered the sound of an approaching wagon until it was almost upon them. It was a strange contraption to Asgardian eyes, squat and ugly with a metal frame, and it was pulled by a great white bear. He'd seen one of the beasts in a menagerie in Alfheim, and that one had been massive and terrifying and beautiful. This one was old and thin and it had long forgotten any greatness it might once have known.

The giants interrupted the conversation in their own tongue to bark more orders. "You'll be under guard. Get in." Once again, with so many weapons on them, they obeyed.

One of the Jotun pulled the back of the wagon open. The space was a little smaller than the cave they'd just left, but after Loki'd pressed himself into a corner and Thor had joined him, three of their captors climbed in, two men with blades drawn and a woman who sat in the other corner and leveled a sort of miniature crossbow at them. He felt a bit claustrophobic already/

The kind of scuffling that went into moving a vehicle of the size carried on outside, and when they lurched forward, the going was punishing. A small thing to worry about in the midst of this nightmare, but Loki's teeth rattled and his bony frame wasn't serving him well by way of cushioning. He enjoyed it, actually. Being uncomfortable because of bad roads and a poorly-made wagon was a great deal pleasanter than confronting the rest of the turmoil in his mind.

But the relative peace didn't last. The Jotun had been speaking among themselves all along. (Loki wanted to observe them, see what patterns he could suss out, but it was wise to keep his head pointed away and he couldn't concentrate, anyway.) There was no warning when the woman spoke in the Aesir tongue.

"These are the hope of Asgard, then? We might as well have left them to their sweet little castle. Such weaklings could never pose a threat." Thor's jaw tightened and Loki caught his elbow through both their cloaks. He wouldn't have been strong enough to hold Thor down even without the clumsy cloth between them, but the reminder stopped his brother. For now. "Fine boys indeed."

Loki tightened his grip, trying to explain in a low whisper what wouldn't come to Thor naturally. "Her words are meaningless, brother. She only means to anger you. Weaken you." Loki knew better than Thor that no words were meaningless, and the warrior prince would never see anger as weakness. He could see his argument had had no weight. "Such a creature could never tarnish your honor."

"Such a creature?" Loki closed his eyes. Her hearing was better than he'd expected, or perhaps she was simply used to the rattling of their conveyance and not distracted the way he was. "The little prince thinks himself very grand, doesn't he? Rotten little brat." She stood, balancing with no difficulty on the shaking floor. One of the others spoke to her in their own tongue, but she shook her head. "No. I won't. But they're already bruised, are they not? You cannot expect me to sit quietly while these spoiled wretches enjoy their comfort."

"Comfort!" Thor was thoroughly ignoring Loki now. "It isn't enough for you to attack our mother, abduct us from our home, and imprison us, but we must be tormented for your satisfaction? No wonder all the realms know you for monsters!"

"All the realms cower before the gormless tyrant, Odin," she spat. Loki tried to get hold of Thor's arm again, but he twisted away, determined to get in a fight with a furious giant inside a wagon. Even the other guards seemed a bit unnerved. Loki wondered how he might turn that to their advantage before he realized any plan of his would be worthless unless it let him keep the cloak and scarf firmly in place.

"Mothers frighten their children with tales of the savage beast, Laufey!" Thor countered.

"Laufey's spirit was crushed by the loss of his child and queen at your father's hands," she said evenly, eyes locked on Thor's. "My sister and her son murdered, while you soft little things were petted and preened in your warm little beds and told what heroes you were."

Loki closed his eyes, sorting out this information. This woman was arguably royalty, and she did not speak of her liege with proper respect. If this band were rebels, she seemed a likely figurehead, but she clearly was not their leader. Too unstable. He didn't want to wed himself to one theory, but it seemed probable that these particular giants had decided their king was too weak and that they would return Jotunheim to its former glory. To which purpose they had a cart, an old bear, and the heir to the Asgardian throne. Not bad, actually.

While he mulled this over, Thor went on obediently rising to the bait. "I would not be so disdainful of Asgard's warriors, Lady. We laid your people low!"

"Seasoned warriors nearly matched us. Cowardice and cunning brought Jotunheim's king to his knees." She took a step toward them. One of her companions spoke again, but she paid him no mind. "And now the children of decadence sneer at a princess."

Ah, so she was considered royal. Loki stepped on Thor's foot, but his efforts were no more useful than the other Jotuns' to calm their companion. His brother would defend his honor, even against nonsense.

"The sons of Odin are trained as strictly as any Asgardian." Even Thor probably didn't believe that. He had figured out recently that he did not, in fact, defeat the Einherjar every time he trained with them, and that even the mightiest warriors knew the value of letting a prince win. At least Loki had never quite believed the praise he got for his magic, and as such had striven to be worthy of the place awarded him by dint of birth.

Not birth. He wasn't sure what it was, precisely, but not birth.

"Useless. Completely useless." She took another step. One of the men tried to draw her back and she pulled her arm free. She was, Loki realized, very big. She was stooping to stand up in the wagon, and she certainly towered over Thor. "Well, perhaps not entirely. You are a pretty little thing. There's no reason a hostage can't be of put to work."

Loki's head was down, the giant's proximity increasing the danger of detection, so he couldn't see any more of Thor than his shoes. But his voice was all a canny little brother needed to know the balance had tipped. "So you have no use for honor at all?" The words were alright, good work for Thor, but the tone was the slightest bit unsteady. And Loki was with him in being unsettled, truth be told. If he could have curled up on himself any more, he would have.

"Did he just realize there might be something waiting that is not deference and soft beds and pretty trinkets? You are not held by diplomats to be coddled for form's sake, pretty prince." She trailed off. "I wonder, is the little one as fair as you?"

Thor stood up, trying to set himself between her and Loki. The wagon bounced and nearly knocked him straight over. Loki scrambled for a way to diffuse the situation, make them both shut up and sit down. Perhaps if he conceded to engage just a little, she'd lose interest.

"Not at all. I'm a perfect fright." He kept his head down, so he had to speak loudly and very carefully modulate his voice. He was a bit hoarse, and he hoped that was simply from screaming and overextending his magic, and not because even his throat had changed conformation. "Why do you think no one hears about anything but the heir? Perhaps if I ever grow into my ears, I'll be as good as plain."

For a moment he hoped it had worked. She was quiet. Then she laughed, and if it was a slightly mad laugh, it might mean she saw the matter as settled. "Mistaking cowardice for wisdom. We know which of Odin's sons follows in his footsteps." Loki couldn't see anything but a bit of Thor's back. He stayed quiet, acknowledging begrudgingly that it was harder than he'd made it sound to just ignore her mockery. "So does every wielder of weak Asgardian sorcery. How does it feel to be bound?" He kept his mouth closed, unable to calculate which course of action was right and settling on none at all. He hated to be stymied under any circumstance, but the fact that he was failing when it might be life or death for him and his brother made him furious with himself. Which in turn made it all the harder to maneuver.

"Farbauti's son would be just your age, little sorcerer. Tell me, when did your father find time to rut with his Vanir whore and snuff out a people's pride all at once? Were you conceived atop a hill of corpses?"

Loki wrinkled his nose. It might be that he'd affected too much calm. If he'd let a little anger show over the insult to his skill, she might not have felt the need to be quite so vile in her imagery. Though the taunt was so over the top he dismissed it with ease, still enough the trickster to wonder what use he might find in her fixation on this lost sister and child. If her thirst for vengeance was personal, he had a way into her head that let him cut around principles.

"Out of my way, golden hair. I'm through speaking with you." She was close enough to touch now, but Thor wouldn't budge. "I would have words with the coward."

Words would have been ideal, really, but the closer she got, the more likely that she would catch a glimmer of red under his hood or a patch of blue if the cloak shifted. "Lady, perhaps you have not studied the art of hostage taking, but to blatantly mistreat is not to your own advantage. You intend to bargain both with our father and your king, do you not? If they have no reason to trust that you will not offer injury, then their incentive to reclaim us better balances the danger of the endeavor. All there is to this game is balancing your risks ahead of theirs and letting probability work its magic."

The words tumbled out, fast and hoarse, and when they ceased he bit his lip, hoping against hope that he might have hit just the right note.

"He is a clever coward, isn't he? I might take your counsel, whoreson, even if you do mean it to keep your own sorry skin intact. But I don't wish for simple victory. I wish to see the weak burn with the Asgardians and regain what's rightfully ours."

Loki was used to the strange way that time passed in a fight. On the rare occasion he was in one himself, it seemed like hours or days went by, but when he watched even something as innocent as Thor and Sif sparring, he was always amazed by the amount of debate and analysis that the meat-heads could find in what looked to him like a few moments of flailing.

The giantess's struggle with Thor seemed very brief even by those standards, but involved everyone in the rocking cart within the few seconds it lasted. She shoved the elder prince aside. Thor held onto her arm. One of the other guards came to pull her away and the other caught hold of Thor, aiming mainly to pull them apart. But the woman was bigger than the one trying to restrain her, enough to take a step forward while Thor was held in place, and snatch the scarf off Loki. He tried to grab for it, thinking perhaps his hands would be less obvious than his face, but she was stronger and his slight hesitation kept him from being the least bit effective anyway.

He wasn't sure what he expected. The situation was so deeply strange that neither immediate execution nor immediate adoption would have surprised him. But he certainly hadn't anticipated the possibility that they would all immediately fall silent, sit back down, and begin speaking quickly in their own tongue.

Loki fought the urge to pull the hood back up. It would get in the way, for all it made him ill to show this face clearly. "Thor?"

"No new damage." Even in the dim light and with his eyes not cooperating, he could see Thor recoil from the hand he offered, but Loki appreciated the effort to speak kindly. Though even Thor's capacity denial must be weakening. "Did she hurt you?" he asked, and Loki thought there was something forced in the solicitude.

"I'm not quite so delicate as I was pretending to be."

"Not quite." The teasing was so ordinary that it made his throat catch as Thor sat back beside him. He could tell his brother wanted to demand an explanation from their captors, but if Loki couldn't think of what question to ask, Thor certainly couldn't.

But something had to be said. The silence weighed heavily for a few moments before one of the Jotun spoke up. The words came slowly, as though his grasp of their language was poor, and his voice was like boulders rolling down a hill, but after the woman, he seemed so calm it was almost like kindness.

"Babes their first night in the world are left in the snow alone until sunrise. Children who cannot live through that night cannot live in Jotunheim. Most times, unfit ones die fastest. But there are... stubborn ones. Too small, too malformed to live. Too hard to die. Those we take to temples to leave. The warrior spirit is a fit sacrifice." Loki gaped a bit at the monstrousness of it, trying to reconcile such an awful practice with the even delivery of the information. He could barely pay enough attention to realize where this was going, and he didn't even like babies. Thor did, and he clapped a hand onto his brother's arm warningly. "Sometimes they are found by others. Traders, emissaries. Dwarves or dark elves, most times. Most temples are open to the air. Mistake the sacrifices for foundlings."

"Never would have guessed Asgardian royalty would take up a pet runt, though," spat the woman, at the end of her patience. Her companion glared at her and she ignored him. "There are even a few of the benighted things that grow up here, hidden by sentimental parents, and most of the ones reared by the little races come home. Can't manage the heat in the soft realms. Never more than thieves and whores when they're grown, though, so you ought to fit right in, Little Prince."

Loki swallowed, unable to respond in kind. Respond at all. He'd half-formed many ideas of _how_ he might have come to be what he was, where he was, some of them quite grim, but a theory was much different than confirmation. To suspect he might have been abandoned as worthless wasn't the same as knowing. Why rejection by brutes he hated more with every moment should distress him he didn't know, but the sure knowledge that he was garbage to whoever had borne him wrapped around his heart and squeezed. He grew colder every moment, and ice was sure to shatter eventually.

He was so busy carefully not looking at Thor that he missed it when she stood again, moving quickly to cover the distance before anyone could intervene. "It's quite an insult, you know. Taking away a sacrifice. Elevating the unfit above their place. Making a prince of one, well, I can't think of a finer trick for the brigand-king to play."

Was that it? Was he an elaborate slap in the face to Laufey? Loki had time to feel another layer of cold tightness settle into his soul and even to be a little angry (he was the one who played inside the delicate psyches of his enemies, toying with their insecurities like a harpist at his strings, not some half-mad Jotun wench!) in the few seconds she gave him before she hauled him to his feet by the collar.

It hurt. It didn't hurt a great deal, but he didn't think it was supposed to. It was meant to make him feel weak and helpless and alone, and knowing that did nothing to alleviate its effectiveness. Because she didn't haul him hard enough that he couldn't twist and talk a little.

"Brother!" He spoke without meaning to, the small sound coming from a part of him that depended on foolish instinct, that cried out for his protector when threatened without regard for sense or planning. He twisted far enough back to see Thor, standing, but not moving to help him. Not shouting threats and demands. Watching, wide-eyed but still. That much was clear even in little light and with weak eyes.

Loki understood. Thor hadn't believed it until now, had convinced himself that this was all some Jotun trick, but the evidence was before him, and even the sweet oaf could no longer deny what was before his eyes. Blue, cold skin and ice for tears were one thing, and perfectly reasonable explanations another. Thor could no longer pretend.

She struck him solidly enough that his old face would have bruised. He barely noticed. When she let go, Loki tumbled to the floor and didn't try to get up. She hadn't needed to resort to something so simple and merciful as hitting. She'd taken away his brother. There was nothing more she could do.


	4. Chapter 4

Loki stayed still for a few moments more. The cart was quiet and still while the woman settled back and Thor sat down again. After what seemed an eon, he reached out with one arm and hauled Loki back onto the narrow bench.

He might have been imagining it, but it seemed like Thor was trying to keep the contact between them to a minimum. Loki considered trying to catch his arm again, but was too afraid to see him pull away to dare. A little hope was better than nothing.

And in a moment, Thor reached over and pushed Loki's hood back up, as though a desperation to hide the unbearable was an ordinary foible of little brothers. He even smiled, and if it was a brittle, unpleasant smile, it meant not everything was lost. Loki wasn't Asgardian, wasn't a prince, wasn't Odin's son, perhaps not even Frigga's, wasn't even a sorcerer at the moment, but he was brother to Thor, and maybe it could stay that way a little while longer. Until it all sank in. Loki leaned on his brother's shoulder shamelessly, feeling very small, and Thor didn't move away.

His heart could still beat for now. Little a thing as it was, he wasn't all frost while there was hope.

Searching for a less morbid occupation before he lost his mind entirely, his eyes fell on a gap in the floor. It was only a fingersbreadth wide and a few long, a ragged hole where a bolt had come out of the frame and the strain had ripped into a weakness in the iron. The little gap showed him nothing at all but a blur of dirty white when he looked straight at it, but if he turned his head a bit, he could resolve movements of shadow, at least. All that was telling him at the moment was that the wheels were spinning fairly regularly, but it was a potential source of information, something to focus on when he had no other schemes to spin and he didn't dare let his eyes or mind rove anywhere else.

The giants kept to each other for conversation from then on, and neither prince had a thing that seemed safe to say. Thor eventually dozed off, leading Loki to wonder how long they'd been in their cell while he slept. He wasn't particularly tired now. Physically weary, yes, but mentally he was tragically alert, and Thor was always the hardier of the two.

The light from his crack in the floor faded a little, but he could still make out the spinning shadows of the wheels. It didn't do much to shore up his sense of time. And for all the turmoil and pain, nothing had ever been so toxic to Loki as boredom. Circumstances could make him miserable, but nothingness made him angry, and that was more likely to lead to trouble.

So he was rather pleased when the wagon stopped. At least it meant something was happening.

There were voices outside. More voices, new voices. And then a large shadow passed by the wagon, one that moved organically and not mechanically.

Loki bent his ear toward the conversation outside. He didn't understand a word, of course, and the walls of the cart distorted it, but he thought he heard tension. When he turned to look at their jailors, he saw disquiet there, too.

_The enemy of my enemy is my friend._ Did he dare call out? He and Thor would be safer in the hands of the king's soldiers, defended by self interest if nothing else. If this were some sort of patrol, it'd be wisest to get into their custody. If they were bandits of some sort, though... Better wait for more information. At least he was sure that chaos was afoot. The raw stuff of trickery.

Someone shouted and the woman stood, arming her bow with the smooth grace of an expert. Her companions seemed not to know whether to stop her. Goading her into making a mistake was a possibility, if he could only be sure her anger was directed somewhere other than their corner of the wagon. Loki elbowed Thor awake as subtly as he could, mind spinning eagerly. He could do this.

"What?"

"Shh, let me think."

An answering shout. What sounded like a trumpet, most incongruous and unnaturally loud. The other two giants stood, but regrettably had a little more sense than Loki would have liked. One of them kept his eyes on the captives. Loki scowled subtly, forgetting his troubles as he looked from jailors to the gap in the floor, calculating. In tricks there was a sublime serenity beyond even magic, provided you were born to be the breaker of rules.

The back of the wagon was thrown open. Three Jotun stood without, barbaric and poorly kitted out to Asgardian eyes but far more uniform and disciplined than the ones who held them hostage. Even with the coming night and Loki's hazy vision, he could tell these were soldiers, not renegades or criminals. Hope swelled for a moment, and then the woman fired.

The range was point blank and apparently the soldiers had expected cooperation. She hit one of them straight in the eye. It was useful to know she was entirely willing to kill her own presumed people should they stand in her way, but the rescue of sorts that Loki had been hoping for wasn't going to be smooth, if possible at all.

That trumpeting sound came again as the two soldiers standing shouted, their comrades answered, an audible fight broke out in front of the wagon, and the doorway was abruptly the scene of a skirmish.

Loki pretended to hide behind Thor and whispered "There's a gap in the floor. Do you think you could break through?"

"Wha-"

"Hush. There's a bolt torn out. The construction seems crude and the whole edifice is on the edge of crumbling between rust, cold, and ill-usage." Loki tried to have a working knowledge of anything that seemed relevant, and had the crabby wherewithal to deal with dwarves when a royal word was necessary. He knew a bit about these things. "I've seen you snap chains to show off to your friends. Strength of Odin and all. If you give it a good kick where it's compromised already, it might open a crack large enough for us to slip out."

"I... yes."

"Good. Do it." Loki leaned out from the protection of Thor's broad back. Too fast, he suspected. It should have been a subtle movement, but no help for it. The woman and the larger of their two jailors were struggling with four soldiers now and the remaining guard clearly wanted to turn and aid them. Loki only had to wait a moment to see one of their guard's two companions imperiled, a sword about to come down on the male, and simply gasped in horror.

It didn't exactly overtax his flair for acting. There was plenty of horror floating free in his mind that he could call up. And he suspected seeing the reaction in a face like his own might have more of an effect on the guard. It worked. He turned, leaving two trapped and unarmed boys unattended to help his friends once he saw their danger.

Loki instinctively tried to draw on his magic, forgetting himself for a moment as he saw Thor strugle to choose his point of attack. The foreboding lack of rising power made him shudder, and that twitch kept him from being skewered by a stray crossbow bolt. It whipped by him to bury itself in the wall, opening a gash on his cheek rather than excising an imprecise section of brainstem.

He _wanted_ to be distracted. Bleeding was a very curious sensation when the blood ran cold and the skin was tough and unyielding. Like wounding a stone. But he'd worry about that disquieting idea later. He tore the bolt out of the wall, wrenching his wrist a bit, and spun to force it into the highest point in the crack. Thor quite outmatched him, but he had more strength than his little frame suggested, and it lodged deep. He closed one eye to adjust the angle, then nodded, and Thor gave it a brutal kick, sucking in air through his teeth. It must have hurt a lot to draw even that from him and his conviction that warriors ought not admit to weaknesses like having nerves.

The gap widened and a wavering crack traveled a few feet up the wall of the wagon, but rather than spreading upward and out as he'd hoped, it stopped. They were just short of the tormented metal's breaking point, and the sounds of the fight were dying down. Damned combat and its thrice-damned quickness. Loki gave in to a moment of uncharacteristic temper and smashed his palms against the wall.

The metal screamed and groaned as impossible coldness shot through it. Ice formed in the crack, strange, opaque ice that was more like stone than anything akin to water. That pressure and the rapid contraction of the metal widened the crack and drove its progress to one side, ultimately knocking the whole corner of the wall out onto the snow below.

Loki wasted a second in staring. He had no magic. That wasn't magic. It was something great and terrible from an entirely different part of him, one that he'd never encountered before and wanted very badly to bury again. He hadn't made it cold, exactly, hadn't summoned ice to hand the way he would working in elemental spells. He'd stolen the heat, the memory of heat, any hint of warmth that sheet of tormented iron might have ever known again, made it as cold as anything might be. The burning cold at the end of everything.

He'd always been a fanciful child. Swallowing a new revulsion, he grabbed Thor's hand and leaped through, hearing a cry as they did that suggested they'd been spotted.

Thor, who'd apparently noticed nothing at all amiss, clapped him on the shoulder as they landed and took stock. Their captors were beset, outnumbered and the worse armed, but they fought with the mad energy of true believers. Or maybe cornered animals. Loki suspected the fight would go to the renegades, and the soldiers looked like a simple patrol, not a large company the princes might flee into. Loki made to lead the way and turned from the sounds of fighting. They'd wait it out and return if the soldiers won the day.

The trumpeting sound up close nearly shattered his eardrums and he found himself facing what he mistook briefly for a hairy tree trunk. Mammoth. He'd never seen one alive, though the tusks and skulls were accounted fine war trophies in Asgard. But he'd asked his tutors, because it seemed to him that a creature of such immensity would be impossibly dangerous to its handler in so much as a slightly bad mood, and he'd been told there wasn't much harm in them, that they were largely for intimidation and toting supplies. This one seemed agitated, but it wasn't attacking them. Just waiting for its masters to give it a command or finish their battle.

"Right, forward."

"Loki, isn't that...?"

"No, you can't keep it. Come along." Not giving Thor any more time to argue—honestly, he'd been doing well and the objections were tiresome—he darted ahead. As he'd hoped, Thor either trusted his judgement or was unwilling to leave him, and they ran unimpeded alongside the towering beast. He nearly got bumped by an incomprehensibly massive leg, which probably would have flattened him, but they were hidden by its bulk well enough to run full tilt into the rocky waste beyond the road.

"Whoever wins will be after us," Thor pointed out as they moved behind a jagged boulder, both more tired than they wanted to admit and telling themselves they stopped for the other's benefit. "Have we gained much, would you say?"

"Options. Directions. In a world of infinite possibilities, I like having as many before me as possible." Loki inhaled slowly and shakily.

"Still. We've no supplies. Even if we did get away, how would we travel? How would we hide?"

"_We_ would not. _I_, however, will hardly raise alarms. From the sound of it, no respectable person would so much as look at me. If we need to approach a settlement to steal food..." He frowned at Thor's shivering. "And gear, at least we needn't worry about my being spotted. And you've trained for winter and mountain campaigns, have you not? We'll do, between us."

"Yes." Thor's usual expression was creeping back, that barely suppressed grin and all the confidence behind it. Loki normally tried to tamp the irritating habit down, but morale was important. "Well done, Little Brother." Loki swallowed self-consciously. Thor probably didn't notice. "We may make it home after all."

Home. What could that possibly mean anymore? He tried to smile back. "Doubted me, did you?" He threw out his hand in a playful shove.

Perhaps it was the slightly pointed teeth in his smile, or the cold, tough skin, or even just the first contact in a few minutes not muddied by fear of immediate death, but Thor pulled away from the teasing hand. All Loki's mad exuberance fell away in an instant. Cold again.

Thor immediately reached over and tugged at a lock of Loki's hair, but it was a sick parody of the old, annoying habit, a clumsy attempt to make it up. He'd jerked away involuntarily, but that was worse. Loki ignored the gesture. "I hope you've your breath back. We'll put more ground between us and the road before it gets darker."

Thor followed him without a word. He'd taken one step to Loki's hurried retreat when the female Jotun appeared behind him, stepping around the boulder with raw madness in her eyes, unmasked for the moment. Her crossbow was gone, one of the soldiers' heavy broadswords in its place. The horrors could be quiet as any child's nightmare coming on when they wished it.

Loki didn't think. He simply moved, the most graceful step he'd ever taken in his life, long and quick and elegant, and set himself between her and his brother. The sword was already on its way down. He didn't care a bit.

Rather than in nothingness, he landed in Thor's arms, aware that his shoulder was dully throbbing with considerable pain, but that everything was still attached. While the woman's companions dragged her back with loud, unintelligible remonstrances, he reached up and winced at the contact, but confirmed it. Not a scratch.

"How in the nine realms, Loki?"

"The chain," he reasoned. "Remember how it resisted all your strength? The blow would have demolished it were we obeying ordinary laws of matter. In defending itself it defended me. In truth, she ought to have shattered a few bones, not just battered me a bit, even if it had only nullified the blade. Talented little artifact." Ah, lecturing. What a comfort.

Thor laughed. "My clever trickster! How did you know?"

Cold again. "I didn't."

Thor's grip tightened, then relaxed, and when he helped Loki back to his feet, it was as delicate a motion as he was capable of. "...You can hide here."

"Thor?"

"You'll be safe. Safer than with them. I'm the one they think is valuable." He stepped closer. The giants didn't seem to care, confident that they'd recaptured their quarry and interpreting the gesture as natural when Thor hugged him gently, refusing to hesitate. "There's a ditch fifty paces ahead, blind little bat. I'll hold them."

"You're no use dead. It doesn't mean you're no use blind or crippled," Loki said, trying to force acid into his voice when he wanted to cry.

"I love my little brother. Don't dare doubt me." Thor pressed his forehead to Loki's, then shoved him away, toward the ditch Loki's eyes couldn't begin to pick out of the undifferentiated gloom.

It was a mad, stupid plan, the kind of thing only Thor could think well reasoned. Loki didn't know why he bothered to run. He told himself that in the very off chance he escaped, he could come back for Thor, make sure both of them were free and safe. Before something terrible happened.

He didn't notice the upwelling of the cold this time, the way desperate need dragged untapped power from him, stealing the warmth from the world and erasing any possible trail with ancient, dead ice, shrouding him in the kind of mist that belonged better to Niflheim as he ran blind. He plunged into the ditch undisturbed by bolts, dashed along the bottom for a half mile before he ran out of space to run, and clambered out to collapse beside an ugly hill of snow, repulsively showing tufts of dark fur that meant he was sheltering beside the mouldering corpse of something to foul for Jotun to eat.

His lungs burned and everything ached, his shoulder worst but not by very much. He wasn't sure he could get up again. The distance wasn't so much, but the terrain, the injuries, the weariness that cut deeper than the wind... Alone and helpless, without supplies or succor in a world that thought him worse than nothing.

And yet somehow he could still swear he heard Thor, insisting doggedly that getting himself brutalized was fighting to win his little brother time to escape. A little brother he couldn't touch without flinching. Sweet, stupid, perfect fool.


	5. Chapter 5

While he wanted to rest, night was coming on, and the air was ever harsher. He'd never been made really uncomfortable by cold in his life, but Jotunheim without even light to warm the heart might be too much for him. It was almost interesting, realizing what cold felt like to everybody else. He only allowed himself a few minutes before he clambered to his feet, still breathing a bit heavily.

Angry at Thor and horribly frightened for him as he was, Loki pushed it all to the back of his mind. He had to find some sort of shelter and craft the ghost of a plan, at least, and then he could be miserable again.

He was a little afraid he might need more time than he had just to find his way to a settlement, but his Asgardian prejudices were showing through again. The land was harsh and ugly and terrible, but it wasn't uninhabited. Only a little time walking brought him to a road.

Still weary, Loki gave himself a few moments' rest and examined the structure. It wasn't much different from an Asgardian road, beyond the fact that the paving stones were in fact paving ice, and it seemed far lonelier than the most desolate way he'd ever traveled at home. He was lucky he found it when he did, for the night was coming down fast, and he needed the smooth surface to pick his way along without stumbling.

Where he was going was an interesting question. He kept an ear bent to the road, ready to run and hide if he heard anyone coming. He was mainly worried about pursuit, but his clothes were certain to mark him. Even if it was true that runty children raised away from Jotunheim came back in the end, it would be odd enough to attract some attention.

Probably. He'd had to accept he knew nothing at all about the world or its people. A fact rather abruptly driven home when he ascended a hill. He had to pick his way up carefully, battered by howling winds and keeping an eye on the boulders that were all the cover around. When he finally reached/ the top, he was shocked to see a city spread out below.

When he got closer, there would be many differences to pick out in layout and architecture, in the way light and movement passed through the streets, in the pack animals and sounds and level of activity. It was, indeed, a most foreign land. But from the top of that hill, it was so normal and homey he wanted to run to it. And he didn't even like cities, all crowds and closeness as they were.

On approach, he weighed his options. If he was going to pass for a foundling raised on another world, a big place with many travelers would be ideal, and he might be able to learn something of the king's sister-in-law or a resistance in general. Though carefully, of course. Even if he could put his hands on a map, it would help.

Language was likely to be his greatest difficulty. The Aesir tongue was the most usual trade language, but that he spoke it as a native would be suspicious. He knew enough to get by of the elf tongue, but he had a bit of an accent, and his dwarvish was hopeless. And who would ever believe that Asgard had taken an abandoned baby giant home to keep? He'd be strange, and therefore memorable.

He was so lost in thought that he barely noticed the sounds of a wagon approaching. It was coming from the city, so he didn't worry that it was his kidnappers, but he barely had time to skitter to the edge of the road and try to look as inoffensive as could be. He hoped the night would hide how odd his clothes were. At least he'd had no finery with him, and his ordinary clothes for hovering about the house (and that seemed so long ago now) weren't very remarkable, though well made. He might have come from any of the friendlier worlds, and Thor's scarf hid the faint glow of the chain on his neck.

Several jotun riding huge, shaggy deer rounded the bend, followed by a neat, enclosed chariot that looked wonderfully comfortable at the moment. The riders were all draped in fur cloaks that he envied almost as much. They took no notice of him but the last in line, who laughed and threw a gnawed-down bone at him, shouting something Loki was fairly glad he didn't understand.

At least he'd had his reception confirmed, but now he needed to hurry and lose himself. Anyone coming after him would now have a witness who'd spotted a lost-looking runt in strange clothes and might remember where.

The city had walls, but half the gates were open, and the ones that were closed went unguarded, looking like they'd been simply shut for the night or due to disuse, not caution. He walked through the massive arch of the closest one, pulling his hood up again. He was going to seem odd to anyone who spotted him, so he might as well hide his face.

The gate brought him to a square that must serve as a market by day. The stalls were all empty now, but the smells remained of animals and metal and leather and food, reminding him how hungry he was. The thought briefly crossed his mind to look for something that might have been left behind, but whatever of the prince was left in him rebelled at the thought of eating garbage. He did keep his eye out for any dropped coins with the thought that he could slip into a tavern. The ghostly scents hovering in the market weren't quite familiar, but even if he could just find mead and bread, he'd be comfortable enough and not have to worry about the distraction of feeling faint.

He'd been wrong to assume no one had business in the market at night. The stalls around the center were abandoned by their proper owners, perhaps, but as he worked his way in the direction of the more permanent buildings ahead, he smelled fresher, stranger smoke. A building that looked half finished in blocks of cloudy ice exuded a spicy, ashen fog that made him sneeze, and he could make out two men nearest the door sharing a waterpipe. Anything else was too dim and hazy for him to make out. An old woman sat on the ground not far away, using a sort of glowing stone to heat bubbling pots of something that spelled powerfully of liquor from across the road.

Loki had never considered whether the jotun cooked food before. Since he liked heat without really needing it for anything, perhaps they enjoyed it, too. Or this could be the equivalent of the shaved ice he and Thor would sometimes have in the summer, making gleefully frivolous use of his elemental magic. Either way, he'd have liked some, but was sure that bartering with a crotchety old street merchant was beyond him in such a strange place, and he didn't want to risk the light head, anyway. In Asgard, most liquids were at least a bit alcoholic, but the watered mead he generally chose didn't smell like that even up close.

He'd hoped that the larger buildings arranged around actual streets would provide a bit more shelter from the wind where he could plan his next move. His intention was still to find a proper tavern. He might have been too royal to make regular excursions into the populace, but he knew enough to be sure that an inn near the gates to a large city would have to have all kinds, let him go relatively unnoticed, provide information.

That it was a terrible plan was self-evident, but he didn't have another. He was just determined not to waste Thor's foolish heroism. Thinking of his brother nearly made him sob, and he carefully banished the thoughts again.

He took it for luck when the first building he saw was lit and loud, but he'd barely begun walking toward it when he spotted the two figures outside. They wore furs against the night, and sumptuous ones, but the cloaks were arranged in such a way as to bare as much flesh and as invitingly as was possible in the mounting cold. Both were bedecked in bright gold and jewels, or at least gold-colored metal and glittering bits of glass and paste, though that was just an ill-natured guess. He couldn't see it so well as that. The girl of the pair blew him a kiss and winked, and the boy shot him a smoky gaze.

They didn't look much older than he did, though they were of an ordinary size for their race. Loki swallowed hard and turned to walk away quickly. He had yet to develop any interest in such things, and it made him a common target of teasing, a prince with no inclination to flirt as he ought. For a moment he was just annoyed that a pretty girl had made sport of him, and the irritation that belonged to his other life was rather calming. It was good to know he could still feel like himself, even if himself had to be pathetically easy to fluster and living under a constant pall of mild humiliation. He didn't even notice that he'd thought of the lady as pretty. That was obvious enough.

Plenty of brothels were also perfectly serviceable taverns, he knew, but he couldn't convince himself to turn back. He told himself that the two courtesans were clearly seeking customers with means and he'd likely be tossed out if he tried to enter, but really he was just alarmed.

"Not so quickly, child," came a soft voice from behind him. It was like honey poured over gravel. He turned slowly, deciding it was the safer option, and looked up to find a Jotun woman regarding him appraisingly. Her furs were also very fine, and she wore a headdress of gold net and crystal beads that sparkled in the little light there was. "Just come to town, I see?"

He swallowed and nodded. The part he was playing had nearly as much reason to be frightened and confused as he did.

"Gjalp and Greip saw you pass and called me." She nodded back to the door. The girl had a customer to flirt with now, but the boy spared a smile in their direction. "Did you come looking for me?"

She spoke the Aesir tongue easily, and Loki decided she might not find it odd if he did the same. That and it was an odd question. "No."

"You must be a sly one, then. Most of the watch will send new little ones to me when they see you." She leaned down, bending nearly double to look him in the eye. "We've a place in the house for you. You'll want some training up, but you'll eat well and sleep dry. And we'll see if something can't be done with you."

He wished the girl _had_ been teasing him. He took an involuntary step back, eyes widening. The woman shook her head a bit sadly in an awful parody of a mildly disappointed mother. "Now, now. I suspect you're very new, aren't you? You've too much flesh left on you to have been stubborn for long. There's no mourning mother pining for the babe she left in the temple, little one, and places like this are long journeys apart. This city isn't particularly inclined to you, either. My house is a safe one, but there's nowhere else that runts are sanctioned. You'll end up the same way with far less comfort."

Loki saw the predatory gleam in her eye, but he also saw the sense of it. He even considered it. Wouldn't that be a splendid way to hide, provide for himself, and find information? If he was indifferent to the drive that seemed to make so many nearly insane, he reasoned, it should be no worse to do it than not to.

But if the act itself had no interest for or against, what surrounded it, the mental games and the strange twists of emotion and the needs and desires he'd seen play out among Asgardians all his life was all very frightening, and he couldn't think of a more helpless position to be in. He might go unnoticed and have a chance to learn, but the cost wasn't one he could pay, and the more he thought about it the more repulsed he was, logic be damned. "Thank you, no," he said softly. There was no kindness in her proposal, but she'd offered perfectly openly to make use of him, and he'd considered using her in return. If he were what she thought, he'd probably have agreed.

"Dear, I suggest you do it the easy way."

Oh, curses. And here he'd taken her for unsavory but honest. He turned around in time to see one large giant approach on his right, as he should have expected. But not on his left. Instead, a girl emerged from that alley, bundling a small something into a mangy mammoth cape.

"Let him be, Harthgrepa," she said evenly. She was about a head taller than Loki was, but she didn't seem as though she'd be growing any more. The first other runt he'd seen, and she bore herself like a warrior queen, not a cowering dog. He found himself staring, reminded a little of Sif, a little of his mother. Her clothes were battered and a strange mix of what he was slowly coming to understand as Jotun fashion and plain, practical leathers than looked dwarvish.

She sounded dwarvish, too, and when Harthgrepa responded in the Jotun tongue, he realized she'd been speaking for his benefit. The madame looked angry, but she spoke with measured calm. One girl, be she ever so bold, was at an obvious disadvantage, so there must be more going on under the surface. After a few more taut words, he and his rescuer were alone in the street.

Unceremoniously, she grabbed his arm and tugged. "Come on."

"Thank you," he said uncertainly. What did she want him for, exactly? At that, did he necessarily trust this wasn't a long con of some kind? It'd be an excellent way to round up the reluctant if Harthgrepa didn't want her new products battered on the way in, winning his trust this way.

"Later. Let's get you out of the street, idiot." She dragged him easily, pulling him through the streets with long, deliberate strides that left him no time to get his bearings or even attempt to keep track of landmarks. In an unfamiliar night he soon lost all sense of direction, and when she pulled him through a cellar door, he had no idea how far they'd even come.

And still she led him on. The door opened to a tunnel, not a room, and while she no longer dragged him, he scrambled to keep up wit her. After his last experience, he had no fondness for dark, cold spaces underground.

"I don't suppose you'd like to talk now?" he ventured, when they were away from the door, their way lit by a glowing gray stone in her hand.

"Might as well. Name?" She didn't slow any.

He'd already made his decision there, at least. "Hrim."

Apparently he was enough of a trickster (or, possibly she didn't really care) that she didn't note the lie. "And you've just arrived? You smell like a softworlder still."

"Really?"

"It's called a metaphor, nitwit."

He wasn't entirely sure it was, in point of fact. "What's your name?" At least it was a neutral question.

"Angrboda. Well, Hrim who reeks of warm nights and green things, welcome." They reached a door, made of hardened ice (like most everything else), and she pulled him inside. It was impossible to say how large the room was, as it was hung all over with drapes of fur and coarse cloth, separating it out into tiny cubbies and corridors."Durnir?" she called. "Got him."

There was a shifting in answer, but no voice. While Loki considered whether he might have made the worse choice, she set down the glowing stone, which grew brighter at a short, barked word, and pulled off her cape.

He'd gotten used to seeing the jotun women, but one his age and closer to his stature was a bit different, or maybe the dwarf-made pieces she wore brought the whole into starker contrast. Angrboda emanated confident practicality and an absolute disdain for appearances, and her braces, cincher, and boots suited her. But the armbands above her elbows, worked in some white metal that described the crinkling lines of frost on a glass pane, the huge gold and crystal pendant around her neck, the profusion of rings and studs in her ears, the flimsy slit skirts that hung to her knees... It was more and finer adornment than he'd seen on most women at home. He only noticed in passing that her breasts were bare and her legs nearly so. He was used to Asgard's saunas, after all, and was possessed of only a situational kind of modesty. It was the brilliant, unapologetic beauty of her that was strange.

Before he could ask for an explanation again, one of the hanging furs shifted, admitting the biggest frost giant Loki had yet seen. He towered over Angrboda and Loki even though his back was twisted and he leaned on a heavy crutch on the left side, every step dragging and lurching. But while by way of actual clothes he only wore a strip of cloth around the waist and a long cloak, he, too, had more of jewels and precious metals than Loki owned for the most elaborate state affairs.

The newcomer—Durnir, presumably—looked to Angrboda silently. She nodded. "Just before Harthgrepa got her hooks in him, too. If Granny Leikn hadn't seen him stumbling around like a fool I might not have got there in time." She hooked a low stool with one foot and dragged it over to slump into it dramatically. The big giant came to sit on a low trunk behind her. Though there were probably three Angrbodas to the Durnir, she was clearly in charge.

The girl looked up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. "So you're what Rindr's after. I'd be more impressed, but she rattles easily. What did you do?"

"Rindr?"

"Oh, you're still wobbly on your legs, foal. She's the lordholder of the place. We're too far from Laufey's throne to know the dubious blessing of his protections, and being as she's the late queen's little sister, there's not been much oversight until just of late. Her scheming and treasonous rumblings have garnered her attention, and she's tightened up and lashed out both in response." The clipped, snide diction further confirmed who'd raised the Lady Angrboda. "And fucked if I care, really." Yes, very Dwarven. "I've precious little loyalty to speak of. But she's always had a particular grudge against us. Her family, it seems, has a habit of producing little ones, and she's a mite defensive. ...Though she's just as venomous to the ones like Durnir." She nodded up to her silent companion. "Harthgrepa is in bed with her. Could be literally, come to think. So she was telling you a kind of truth. The only place a runt or a lifelong cripple can work is her establishment. And she would have fed you and dressed you up pretty and all, but I've spirited her charges away before a time or two. If she takes the gold, you do the work, and she's not picky. And ask yourself, how many interested in a whore half their size are in it because they _like_ something easy to hurt?"

She finally stopped for a breather. Loki understood the urge to lecture very well. In fact, though she was hard and a bit wild and most unmannerly, he rather felt he could work with this woman. But he did have a question, and thought it best to get it asked before she began again.

"You were looking for me. What were you looking for, exactly?"

"Was getting to that. I have ears and eyes in a few useful places. An order came in to one of the guard houses to look out for a runt in foreign clothes. Lucky for you and me, Rindr's never had any sense of how to keep a garrison. The Watch rests mostly on nepotism or petty criminals joining to get out of trouble, and they've not responded to their lady's increased intensity over the last little while with any undue perspicacity. Lazy buggers, mostly. I got it, and I got you, before word got around. Harthgrepa might not even have known."

Well, now he knew. "Why did she retreat? I take it you took one of her toughs, but it was still two against you. I doubt you were counting on me."

She snorted. "Maybe I like you. No, kit, your contribution wasn't taken into account. That was merely judiciously applied blackmail. Though I did knock out that first one."

Loki couldn't help looking askance. "The proprietor of a brothel that treats its staff as chattel with the full blessing of her ruler can be blackmailed? What scandal would distress her?"

"She may not have any virtue to preserve, but she's part of the tangled web we all weave, same as any of us. You see, due to Rindr's isolationist bent, the high and mighty of our great city have a hard time getting hold of those luxuries the others can put their hands on so easily, and the cities that do take traders are glad to squeeze them. That and the expense of the trips would leave them far less adorned, and whil3 their own smiths are perfectly good, the fashion is the foreign. Fortunately, we are supplied by a mysterious crafter with the skill of the dwarves and the delicacy of the elves, able to keep the great ones in all the sparkle that their little hearts desire."

"Skill, delicacy?" Loki guessed, pointing in turn to Durnir and then Angrboda.

"Other way around, but yes. We are the Ironwood Maiden. Harthgrepa stumbled onto the knowledge, and it puts her in a bind. Should she reveal all, she and her most prized customers will lose their supplier. Rindr's not calm enough to quietly let the jewelry-making go on, after all, but with the two of us in a prison cell. They'll be poorer, too, with less to pour into her coffers. And I've arranged for her complicity to be known should anything ever happen to us. I could push my luck too far, certainly, and perhaps I have done, but if my having you means Rindr won't, I'll find a way to make it work."

Durnir gathered up his crutch and stood to go. Apparently he had no head for these things. Good that he recognized it. Loki moved into the seat as he slowly vacated it. "Tell me, Ironwood Maiden, what is your end game? The best-case scenario of your crafts and secret network?"

"In a broad sense? Doing what I can for all the damaged children that stumble through this world. Immediately? I need to do something about Rindr. Her stranglehold is only harming the weak for now, but if she keeps at it, her own cronies will begin to suffer, and a slow boil to unrest will squeeze us all the worse before she's overthrown in the end. I've long wished another lordholder would start a spat with her. She holds the true loyalties of only a few, but her connection to the king holds them back."

Loki smiled slowly, unaware that the expression was rather more sinister in his blue-stone face under ruby eyes than the pale Aesir child's had ever been. Though it had no particular effect on Angrboda. In her, he sensed a kindred spirit, though he didn't have her impulse to crusade, of a certain. He only wanted his brother. He'd be sorry if her plans backfired and the chaos spread outward to fall on the heads of her troubled children, as seemed likely, but he had to work with what he had. And not think of Thor while he needed to work. "What if I said you could turn the king against her?"

"You're no lost beggar child hoping to find a berth in a world you might have once belonged to, are you?"

"I think you know the answer."

"What do you get from this? I've seen eyes like that before, silver-tongue."

He liked that. "She holds a hostage I must have free. This isn't added risk for you, though; it's the only way the scheme works at all. Laufey would be distressed to know, if he doesn't already, but I think it unlikely that he'd make a move if she still had the boy to hold over his head." He liked Angrboda, but he by no means trusted her. He'd speak of Thor like a stranger if he had to.

"You're sure? There's no love lost between them, to be sure, but they loved the same lady once, in their ways, and she may do what she does with his blessing. He's a canny old wolf himself."

"Her retinue killed a patrol that intended to inspect a wagon on the way here."

"Ah. Well, in that case I've but to extract a well-guarded hostage from the keep of a paranoid fanatic who hates me first for being born in the first place and deliver him to a palace halfway around the world on the say-so of a canny stranger with secrets in his heart."

"That is, in fact, the size of it, Milady."

"...I'm hungry. Are you?"

"_Yes._"


	6. Chapter 6

Loki was rather pleased to discover that the giants did, in fact, cook their food, and that it wasn't particularly inferior to Asgardian cooking. While the meat wasn't what would have graced the royal table, it wasn't anything worse than a bit gamey and tough, and the flat, greenish bread was strange, but edible. Once he'd finished (and he'd been rather ravenous, all told), Angrboda made him rest.

He protested, but mostly for form's sake. Exhaustion was a good way to make mistakes, and finding the Ironwood Maiden had already put him in a good way toward recapturing Thor. He didn't know what happened then, but one step at a time. He collapsed gratefully on the mat she showed him and... entirely failed to fall asleep.

Burying his fears and distress in activity had worked like a charm (at at least journeyman level), and Loki wasn't quite as wise as he thought himself. The crush of misery as it all came rushing back almost made him whimper aloud, but he knew there was only a curtain between him and the others, so he bit his lip and crushed the impulse before more escaped.

Thor was alone. It had always been Loki's place to stand beside him, defend him from what couldn't be thwarted by confident grins and being able to hit fairly hard. Loki was alone. It had always been Thor's place to stand beside him, defend him from what couldn't be thwarted by cleverness, magic, and ducking. They were two halves of a whole, and he'd never understood how vulnerable it made each of them.

He was sure something awful had happened by now. Thor was a hostage in the hands of an incompetently scheming lunatic. He'd still be a perfectly good hostage if he were damaged, as long as he was a bit more intact than not. Loki squeezed his eyes shut and ground his knuckles in to drive off the icy tears that threatened. If he could take his magic back, he'd make them all pay three times over for any mark they left on his brother.

When weariness finally overpowered him, it had none of the gentleness of falling asleep, just a curtain of blackness that flowed in all at once. His eyes opened to scuffling sounds some unknown while later, and he didn't feel as though he'd rested at all.

His section of room was being invaded. The two girls sneaking in around the hanging were still children and identical down to their curls, soft little features and gleaming red eyes making a fascinating contrast that he noticed even in his bleary state. They each carried a bundle and were giggling as girls on the cusp of adolescence did, deliberately to disconcert him (or so he'd always felt). "Hello?" he ventured.

They giggled again. Angrboda followed them after a moment. "Hyndla, Hyrrokkin, be nice. Up, little kit. And they don't speak anything but our own tongue, so don't bother." She bopped one of the girls lightly when she stuck out her tongue, but Angrboda's expression was fond. "The twins are here to help me make you halfway respectable."

Loki frowned a bit as he stood, rubbing at his temples. "What does that mean?"

"Good question. If you had enough hair I'd put you in a child's plait, and that might fool people at a distance. But you don't, so no use wishing."

"So I'm to be disguised actively, not just made less of a spectacle?" He nodded approvingly. "I suppose she must have said more than that she's looking for a runt in strange clothes."

Angrboda took the bundle from one of the girls and unrolled it to show him a dark length of very thin wool. Or something like wool. He doubted there were proper sheep to be found here. "Down to the silly looking ears, though that description wasn't in her own hand. She has more competent retainers."

Loki decided not to mind the comment about his ears. They did stick out a bit. It wasn't worth the disagreement. "I haven't seen anything like that worn."

"And you've made such a thorough survey?" She raised an eyebrow. He raised one back and she relented. "It's a fashion from further inland. You'll garner some attention, but hopefully the illusion should more than make up for it."

"And the illusion is?" Loki asked as he took the cloth from her. It didn't seem to quite constitute a garment any way he squinted at it.

"It's a woman's fashion," she said shortly. "The hair will still be odd, but I can dress it to make the length less notable."

She looked to be steeling herself for argument, but Loki just nodded. He saw the wisdom of it. They might be looking for a runt with his face, but they were looking for a boy. The lady's clothes would make their eyes slide off him. That left the question of why Angrboda thought anyone would buy it. "I think I may be lacking in certain endowments," he said evenly, glancing at the younger girls. They also wore nothing but jewelry from the waist up, though at their age there wasn't much to distinguish.

"That's why I'm not simply pinning up my clothes for you. This goes across the chest. Hyndla?" And she broke into a short speech in the Jotun tongue. One of the girls scurried over and raised her arms, and Angrboda set about demonstrating what seemed to him an unreasonable number of twists and loops that turned the irregular strip of cloth into something like an ordinary lady's gown for the summer. Loki didn't know very much about fashion, but his powers of observation hadn't abandoned him. The drapey shape would not only disguise his chest and hips but give him far more opportunities for concealment than the usual lady's garb he'd seen so far.

He suspected he'd make a very plain girl, but he did have fairly delicate features even by Asgardian standards, and the dress would probably do much of the work. "Now if I just keep my mouth shut?"

"Precisely. Now disrobe, and I'll show you how to get it on." She began to unwind her assistant, and Loki swallowed his objections. He wouldn't have been able to get it on alone. But even in the face of logic, he undressed as slowly as he could, setting his clothes in a neat pile. He'd never much cared about clothes, but each piece felt like a little bit of home. He folded his cloak and set his boots beside it, took as long as he could to unwind Thor's scarf, and did his best not to think about his all-female audience as he stripped to his smallclothes. At least Angrboda wasn't whispering. She did tell him to keep going, though, and he bit his lip. The embarrassment was mild and very silly, but he couldn't easily dismiss the sense of being so exposed. There was nothing between his hated new skin and the world, and even finding Angrboda and her companions fairly agreeable didn't lessen his hatred for his own nature.

"What's this?" He felt her approaching and turned just in time to see as she touched the chain around his neck and quickly pulled her hand back. "...Oh, you are in deep."

"Could you remove it?" he asked hopefully. She _was_ trained in the more esoteric dwarven arts.

"Not me, or Durnir. It'd take a master to do without knowing the keys, and I was nowhere near when I had to leave the caverns before I was cooked." She smiled crookedly. "I can hide it, though. I don't rightly know what it is, to be sure, but I can keep it from glowing." She closed her eyes in concentration a moment and the chain faded to plain metal. "There."

"And you protest your own skill, lady?"

"If you want to know a secret, kit, we're all of us a bit of something extra, we broken and rejected. I suspect that's the real reason they get rid of us. You can reach into the cold already, I wager? And whatever got you collared like this was no little skill." She shook her head.

"Why kit?" Loki asked, a little unnerved by her moment of reflection. He didn't _want_ his skill at magic to be attributable to his heritage, particularly that of his heritage that had made him worthless even to the monsters, and he already knew and hated his connection to the ice. Hopefully she was being more philosophical than exact.

"Because you put me in mind of a fox, and I'm sure you can see why." She frowned. "You're a mess. We'll need to put you in furs, too, I think."

She'd lost him again. He might have been more tired than he'd allowed for. "What do you mean?"

"You look like someone rolled you down a hill in a bag of rocks." She shrugged. "Not that bystanders would object much, but it's something for people to remember. That shoulder looks awful."

Loki looked down, feeling even more self-conscious over the injuries than the exposure. He hadn't thought of them much, but they marked every disaster since he and Thor had gone riding. He couldn't see much swelling or even discoloration, but Angrboda must have more experience sussing out the ordinary variations of blue and darker blue, contusions and ridges on stony skin. "Yes, well..."

"I'm not going to ask. Here, let's get you wrapped." She made short work of it, and Loki actually rather liked the result, almost as much as he liked her willingness not to pry. The cloth was soft and it was nice to be in something clean. "Stay still, now. Girls." Angrboda snapped her fingers and she and her assistants went to work.

Loki was young enough to get out of many state occasions, but ceremonies and special events still demanded his participation. Usually that meant silk and linen versions of his usual clothes with a bit of extra trim, then a helm and a few bits of armor that came out of the treasury, kept around for royal children too small to have had permanent pieces made. Preparing generally meant a bath first and having someone help him with the harder to reach buckles.

The three Jotun ladies, however, were completely content to use him as a doll, bedecking him in rosy gold and warm, bloody garnets, tying him into a pair of glittery sandals that laced to his knees, and dressing his hair with a net of silver studded with what turned out to be ice. It was, Loki supposed, merely another stone in a world where there was never anything warm.

Finally they were satisfied, and he felt ridiculous. He'd always worked hard _not_ to be noticeable, and it was so very alien. Not even the queen wore so many baubles. "Why all of this? Surely you've better things to pour your resources into than expensive sparkles," he said a bit sourly as he plucked at a heavy band that covered most of his forearm, and quite uncomfortably. It limited his range of movement in a way he didn't like, but honestly he was just distressed by the unfamiliar sensation.

Angrboda raised an eyebrow at him. "I make it, remember? The cheaper pieces I haven't sold yet go to keep my charges looking presentable."

Apparently, "presentable" meant "overdressed for a high festival at the royal court" in this otherwise barren land. Loki decided not to argue. The jewels couldn't make his queasy discomfort very much worse, he reasoned, for all he was achingly aware of all the metal. "Well, you have me dressed. Where to now?"

"To give you a look at our lordholder's castle. There are ways in, some riskier than others, and I'd rather you have a sense of which way we're going while I decide what can be done with what we have."

"And what do we have?" He couldn't help sounding a bit hopeful. Maybe she had reserves, favors or magics or even just interesting weapons.

"Me, you, Durnir should we take certain routes, a possible bribe or two, and several pointed sticks."

"It's possible that I hate you."

"Dear kit, I'd have it no other way." She passed nodded to the little girls, who scampered away. "Follow me."

He was in disguise and they were undertaking reconnaissance. He wanted at least a little more information than he had. He wondered if she was absentminded, wanted the fun of having him ask, or possibly even trusted him to figure it out, and decided the second option was most likely. "What's the plan?"

"We're going peddling." When he followed her past one particular wall of draped cloth (he had no sense of direction underground, he was finding), she passed him a basket laden with rather crudely carved crystals in the shapes of animals and flowers. "The best view from the civilian side of the castle is through the market. It's daylight, and the precise way to attract attention is to behave like you don't want any." He saw the wisdom in that. He'd used similar tactics himself. "It's true that officially we're only allowed to work the brothel, but a couple of flimsy little urchins like us selling rubbish aren't worth the trouble, and in daylight even the guard won't usually harass us. It doesn't comport with the way people like to think of themselves, watching hulking brutes with spears harassing delicate little girls, even misbegotten and accursed girls." She wore a smile that Loki found a bit alarming as he continued to trail after. "Though they will assume we're whores without a madame."

"Splendid."

"Just try not to look as though you've been hit by a fish if it comes up. If you'd been here any length of time you'd be used to it." She opened the door out into a tunnel. Loki had no idea if it was the tunnel they'd come in by last night. "If you have someone less wretched than Harthgrepa looking out for you, it really is the safest thing to do. I can send you inland once this is over if you like. Gryla doesn't start anyone until they've rather more years on them than you, and it'd be no difference between being a servant there and any other place of business."

He swallowed. "Thank you for the thought."

"Well, what do you plan to do when this is over and you've recovered this prisoner of yours? You don't seem inclined to join my irregulars."

Loki stopped dead for a brief moment, then forced himself to catch up. She'd had to put the idea in his head. He could never stop thinking, a curse as much as a gift. After? "I'll have to work it out then. I haven't the least energy to spare from the task at hand."

"And you're really not going to tell me what's important about this hostage of yours? No? It's alright. I can still work with that." They reached a door that rattled in the cold wind from outside. "But you wouldn't be the first one I've had who thought they might have a home to go back to, and not one of them has been right yet."

Strangely enough, he didn't feel a thing at that. Maybe he finally had frozen for good. "That much, Milady, I do know."

"Good." She threw open the door and they stepped into the light.

It was cold in a shuddering, unreal way that Loki had nonetheless learned to ignore, but there was enough of a crowd that navigating was difficult. He was engrossed by keeping up with Angrboda's long strides in the press of people and the odd flow of traffic was a trial, and Loki noted with something like satisfaction that she wasn't a perfect actress. She might be a small, meandering creature a step up from a beggar in this role, but her walk was confident and strong, her bearing a little too straight and proud. He was far more satisfied with his own performance.

There were very clear requirements, and from those he took his cues. He had to stick close and look overwhelmed and frightened so that she could handle it if anyone spoke to them in a tongue he didn't know, and he had to keep his head down and his mouth shut so his voice and manner wouldn't give him away. It wasn't long before he understood the girl he was supposed to be. He was always rather a method actor. They'd only been out a matter of minutes by the time he'd chosen a name and composed a history, believed in the creature he wanted the world to see, and that meant everyone else would believe in her, too.

Loki had spent his life wearing masks, and it was a small thing to try to go deeper into an unknown role. He sold a little rock crystal creature to a woman in a red skirt and a hundred tiny rubies. He dodged a cart pulled by an immense, shaggy cow, snatching his dress away from the dirty snow tossed his way. He pretended to be very interested in a shop window when a pair of men across the street shouted things he didn't need to know the language to understand while his taller, braver companion grumbled.

He became part of the city, part of the ice. It was just like freezing on the inside. He had no choice about being a simpering, skittish orphan who belonged here until the rescue was complete, and so he poured himself into it entirely.

And if that meant he was too cold and too deeply buried to think of what would happen after he had Thor back, that was just as it should be.


End file.
